A  SHEAF 

JOHN  GALSWORTHY 


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BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 

VILLA    RUBEIN,  and  Other  Stories 
THE   ISLAND    PHARISEES 
THE   MAN    OP   PROPERTY 
THE   COUNTRY   HOUSE 
FRATERNITY 
THE   PATRICIAN 
THE   DARK   FLOWER 
THE  FREELANDS 


A   COMMENTARY 

A  MOTLEY 

THE   INN   OF   TRANQUILLITY 

THE    LITTLE    MAN,    anil  Other  Satires 

A  SHEAF 


PLAYS:    FIRST   SERIES 

and  Separately 

THE   SILVER   BOX 
JOY 

STRIFE 

PLAYS:  SECOND  SERIES 

and  Separately 

THE   ELDEST   SON 
THE   LITTLE   DREAM 
JUSTICE 

PLAYS:   THIRD    SERIES 

and  Separately 

THE   FUGITIVE 
THE   PIGEON 
THE   MOB 

A  BIT  o'  LOVE 


MOODS,    SONGS,    AND    DOGGERELS 
MEMORIES.      Illustrated 


A  SHEAF 


A  SHEAF 


BY 

JOHN  GALSWORTHY 


*       > 
>       *  ■  i  >  >  i  j  >  j 


- 
i    ' 


NEW  YORK 
CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS 

1916 


Copyright,  1916,  by 
Charles  Scrirner's  Sons 


Published  September,  1916 


G!3sKe 


TO 
WILLIAM  ARCHER 


AUTHOR'S    NOTE 

This  volume  is  but  a  garnering  of  non-creative 
writings;  mostly  pleas  of  some  sort  or  other — 
wild  oats  of  a  novelist,  which  the  writer  has  been 
asked  to  bind  up.  He  cannot  say  that  he  had 
any  wanton  pleasure  in  sowing  any  of  them ;  and, 
lest  there  be  others  of  the  same  opinion  as  the 
anonymous  gentleman  who  thus  joyously  ad- 
dressed him  last  July: — 'But  there — I  suppose 
you  are  getting  a  bit  out  of  it.  Men  of  your 
calibre  will  do  anything  for  filthy  lucre — you  old 
and  cunning  reptile!' — he  mentions  that  he  has 
not,  personally,  profited  a  penny  by  anything 
in  this  volume,  and  that  the  future  proceeds 
therefrom  will  be  given  to  St.  Dunstan's,  and 
the  National  Institute  for  the  Blind,  London. 

In  these  days  of  manifold  human  misery, 
many  will  be  impatient  reading  some  of  the 
pleas  written  before  the  war;  but  the  war  will 
not  last  for  ever,  and  in  the  peace  that  follows 
life  will  be  rougher,  the  need  for  those  pleas 
more  insistent  even  than  it  was. 

vn 


AUTHOR'S  NOTE 

The  writings  have  been  pruned  a  little,  and 
two  or  three  have  not  yet  met  the  public  eye. 

To  the  many  editors  of  Journals  and  Reviews 
wherein  the  others  have  appeared — cordial  thanks. 

J.  G. 

August,  1916. 


vm 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Much  Cry — Little  Wool 

on  the  treatment  of  animals: 

for  love  of  beasts 3 

reverie  of  a  sportsman 33 

the  slaughter  of  animals  for  food      .      .  48 

on  performing  animals 72 

vivisection  of  dogs 81 

horses  in  mines         88 

the  docking  of  horses'  tails       ....  94 

aigrettes 96 

concerning  laws: 

on  procedure  in  parliament 98 

the  nature  of  laws 101 

passing 10s 

the  modern  stoic:  an  ill-natured  duologue  114 

on  prisons  and  punishment: 

solitary  confinement 120 

the  spirit  of  punishment 150 

an  unpublished  preface 159 

on  the  position  of  women: 

"GENTLES,  LET  US  rest!" 164 

APPEAL  TO  THE  PRESS 184 

ix 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

on  social  unrest 188 

on  peace: 

the  will  to  peace 205 

peace  of  the  air 210 

The  War 

valley  of  the  shadow 215 

CREDO 216 

FRANCE 219 

REVEILLE 221 

FIRST   THOUGHTS   ON   THIS   WAR 224 

THE   HOPE   OF   LASTING   PEACE 242 

DIAGNOSIS   OF  THE   ENGLISHMAN 250 

LITERATURE   AND   THE   WAR 263 

ART   AND   THE   WAR 270 

TRE   CIME   DI    LAVAREDO 283 

SECOND   THOUGHTS   ON   THIS   WAR 288 

TOTALLY  DISABLED 313 

CARTOON 318 

HARVEST 322 

And — After  ? 

PRELUDE 327 

FREEDOM  AND   PRIVILEGE .  334 

X 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

the  nation  and  training 341 

health,  humanity,  and  procedure  ....     354 
a  last  word 363 

The  Islands  of  the  Blessed 369 


XI 


MUCH   CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 


ON  THE  TREATMENT  OF  ANIMALS 


FOR  LOVE  OF  BEASTS 

(A  Paper  in  the  Pail  Mall  Gazette,  1912) 
1§ 

We  had  left  my  rooms  and  were  walking  briskly 
down  the  street  toward  the  river,  when  my  friend 
stopped  before  the  window  of  a  small  shop  and 
said: 

"Goldfish!" 

I*  looked  at  him  very  doubtfully;  one  had 
known  him  so  long  that  one  never  looked  at  him 
in  any  other  way. 

"Can  you  imagine;',  he  went  on,  "how  any 
sane  person  can  find  pleasure  in  the  sight  of  those 
swift  things  swimming  for  ever  and  ever  in  a 
bowl  about  twice  the  length  of  their  own  tails?" 

"No,"  I  said,  "I  cannot — though,  of  course, 
they're  very  pretty." 

"That  is,  no  doubt,  the  reason  why  they  are 
kept  in  misery." 

*  For  "I"  read  almost  any  one. — J.  G. 

3 


if 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

Again  I  looked  at  him;  there  is  nothing  in  the 
world  I  distrust  so  much  as  irony. 

People  don't  think  about  these  things,"  I  said. 
!You  are  right/'  he  answered,  "they  do  not. 
Let  me  give  you  some  evidence  of  that.  ...  I 
was  travelling  last  spring  in  a  far  country,  and 
made  an  expedition  to  a  certain  woodland  spot. 
Outside  the  little  forest  inn  I  noticed  a  ring  of 
people  and  dogs  gathered  round  a  gray  animal 
rather  larger  than  a  cat.  It  had  a  sharp-nosed 
head  too  small  for  its  body,  and  bright  black 
eyes,  and  was  moving  restlessly  round  and  round 
a  pole  to  which  it  was  tethered  by  a  chain.  If  a 
dog  came  near,  it  hunched  its  bushy  back  and 
made  a  rush  at  him.  Except  for  that  it  seemed  a 
shy-souled,  timid  little  thing.  In  fact,  by  its 
eyes,  and  the  way  it  shrank  into  itself,  you  could 
tell  it  was  scared  of  everything  around.  Now, 
there  was  a  small,  thin-faced  man  in  a  white 
jacket,  holding  up  a  tub  on  end,  and  explaining 
to  the  people  that  this  was  the  little  creature's 
habitat,  and  that  it  wanted  to  get  back  under- 
neath; and  sure  enough,  when  he  held  the  tub 
within  its  reach,  the  little  animal  stood  up  at 
once  on  its  hind  legs  and  pawed,  evidently  try- 
ing to  get  the  tub  to  fall  down  and  cover  it.  The 
people  all  laughed  at  this;  the  man  laughed,  too, 
and  the  little  creature  went  on  pawing.    At  last 

4 


FOR  LOVE  OF  BEASTS 

the  man  said :  '  Mind  your  back  legs,  Patsy ! ' 
and  let  the  tub  fall.  The  show  was  over.  But 
presently  another  lot  came  up;  the  white-coated 
man  lifted  the  tub;  and  it  began  all  over  again. 

"  'What  is  that  animal?'  I  asked  him. 

"  '  A  'coon.' 

"'How  old?' 

"  'Three  years — too  old  to  tame.' 

"  'Where  did  you  catch  it?' 

"  'In  the  forest — lots  of  'coons  in  the  forest.' 

"  'Do  they  live  in  the  open,  or  in  holes?' 

"  'Up  in  the  trees,  sure;  they  only  gits  in  the 
hollows  when  it  rains.' 

'"Oh!  they  live  in  the  open?  Then  isn't  it 
queer  she  should  be  so  fond  of  her  tub  ? ' 

"  'Oh,'  he  said,  'she  do  that  to  git  away  from 
people ! '  and  he  laughed — a  genial  little  man. 
'She  not  like  people  and  dogs.  She  too  old  to 
tame.    She  know  me,  though.' 

"  'I  see,'  I  said.  'You  take  the  tub  off  her, 
and  show  her  to  the  people,  and  put  it  back  again. 
Yes,  she  would  know  you  ! ' 

"  'Yes,'  he  repeated  rather  proudly,  'she  know 
me — Patsy,  Patsy !  Presently,  you  bet,  we  catch 
lot  more,  and  make  a  cage,  and  put  them  in.' 

"He  was  gazing  very  kindly  at  the  little  crea- 
ture, who  on  her  gray  hind  legs  was  anxiously 
begging  for  the  tub  to  come  down  and  hide  her, 

5 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

and  I  said:  'But  isn't  it  rather  a  miserable  life 
for  this  poor  little  devil  ? ' 

"He  gave  me  a  very  queer  look.  'There's  lots 
of  people/  he  said — and  his  voice  sounded  as  if 
I'd  hurt  him — 'never  gits  a  chance  to  see  a 
'coon' — and  he  dropped  the  tub  over  the  rac- 
coon. .  .  . 

"Well !  Can  you  conceive  anything  more  piti- 
ful than  that  poor  little  wild  creature  of  the  open, 
begging  and  begging  for  a  tub  to  fall  over  it, 
and  shut  out  all  the  light  and  air  f  Doesn't  it 
show  what  misery  caged  things  have  to  go 
through  ?  " 

"But,  surely,"  I  said,  "those  other  people 
would  feel  the  same  as  you.  The  little  white- 
coated  man  was  only  a  servant." 

He  seemed  to  run  them  over  in  his  memory. 
"Not  one!"  he  answered  slowly.  "Not  a  single 
one !  I  am  sure  it  never  even  occurred  to  them 
— why  should  it?  They  were  there  to  enjoy 
themselves." 

We  walked  in  silence  till  I  said: 

"I  can't  help  feeling  that  your  little  white- 
coated  man  was  acting  good-heartedly  according 
to  his  lights." 

"Quite!  And  after  all  what  are  the  sufferings 
of  a  raccoon  compared  with  the  enlargement  of 
the  human  mind?" 

6 


FOR  LOVE  OF  BEASTS 

"Don't  be  extravagant!  You  know  he  didn't 
mean  to  be  cruel." 

"Does  a  man  ever  mean  to  be  cruel?  He 
merely  makes  or  keeps  his  living;  but  to  make 
or  keep  his  living  he  will  do  anything  that  does 
not  absolutely  prick  to  his  heart  through  the 
skin  of  his  indolence  or  his  obtuseness." 

"I  think/'  I  said,  "that  you  might  have  ex- 
pressed that  less  cynically,  even  if  it's  true." 

"Nothing  that's  true  is  cynical,  and  nothing 
that  is  cynical  is  true.  Indifference  to  the  suf- 
fering of  beasts  always  comes  from  overabsorp- 
tion  in  our  own  comfort." 

"Absorption,  not  overabsorption,  perhaps." 

"Ha!  Let  us  see  that!  Very  soon  after  see- 
ing the  raccoon,  I  was  staying  at  the  most  cele- 
brated health  resort  of  that  country,  and,  walk- 
ing in  its  grounds,  I  came  on  an  aviary.  In  the 
upper  cages  were  canaries,  and  in  the  lower  cage 
a  splendid  hawk.  It  was  as  large  as  our  buzzard 
hawk,  brown-backed  and  winged,  light  under- 
neath, and  with  the  finest  dark-brown  eyes  of 
any  bird  I  ever  saw.  The  cage  was  quite  ten 
feet  each  way;  a  noble  allowance  for  the  very 
soul  of  freedom !  The  bird  had  every  luxury. 
There  was  water,  and  a  large  piece  of  raw  meat 
that  hadn't  been  touched.  Yet  it  was  never  still 
for  a  moment,  flying  from  perch  to  perch,  and 

7 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

dropping  to  the  ground  again  and  again  so 
lightly,  to  run;  literally  run,  up  to  the  bars  to 
see  if  perhaps — they  were  not  there.      Its  face 

was  as  intelligent  as  any  dog's " 

My    friend    muttered    something    I    couldn't 
catch,  and  then  went  on: 

"That  afternoon  I  took  the  drive  for  which 
one  visits  that  hotel,  and  it  occurred  to  me  to  ask 
my  chauffeur  what  kind  of  hawk  it  was.  'Well/ 
he  said,  'I  ain't  just  too  sure  what  it  is  they've 
got  caged  up  now;  they  changes  'em  so  often.' 
"  'Do  you  mean,'  I  said,  'that  they  die  in  cap- 
tivity?' 

"  'Yes,'   he  answered,   'them  big  birds  soon 
gits  moulty  and  go  off.'    Well,  when  I  paid  my 
bill  I  went  up  to  the  semblance  of  proprietor — 
it  was  one  of  those  establishments  where  the  only 
creature  responsible  is  'Co.' — and  I  said: 
:  I  see  you  keep  a  hawk  out  there  ? ' 
;Yes.    Fine  bird.    Quite  an  attraction!' 
People  like  to  look  at  it  ? ' 
'Just  so.    They're  uncommon — that  sort.' 
:Well,'  I  said,  'I  call  it  cruel  to  keep  a  hawk 
shut  up  like  that.' 

"  '  Cruel  ?    Why  ?    What's  a  hawk,  anyway — 
cruel  devils  enough ! ' 

"  'My  dear  sir,'  I  said,  'they  earn  their  living 
just  like  men,  without  caring  for  other  creatures' 

8 


U  I 

cc  c- 

cc  c 

CC  I 

CI  I 


FOR  LOVE  OF  BEASTS 

sufferings.    You  are  not  shut  up,  apparently,  for 
doing  that.    Good-bye.'  " 

As  he  said  this,  my  friend  looked  at  me,  and  added : 

"You  think  that  was  a  lapse  of  taste.  What 
would  you  have  said  to  a  man  who  cloaked  the 
cruelty  of  his  commercial  instincts  by  blaming  a 
hawk  for  being  what  Nature  made  him?" 

There  was  such  feeling  in  his  voice  that  I  hesi- 
tated long  before  answering. 

"Well,"  I  said,  at  last,  "in  England,  anyway, 
we  only  keep  such  creatures  in  captivity  for 
scientific  purposes.  I  doubt  if  you  could  find  a 
single  instance  nowadays  of  its  being  done  just 
as  a  commercial  attraction." 

He  stared  at  me. 

"Yes,"  he  said,  "we  do  it  publicly  and  scien- 
tifically, to  enlarge  the  mind.  But  let  me  put  to 
you  this  question.  Which  do  you  consider  has 
the  larger  mind — the  man  who  has  satisfied  his 
idle  curiosity  by  staring  at  all  the  caged  animals 
of  the  earth,  or  the  man  who  has  been  brought  up 
to  feel  that  to  keep  such  indomitable  creatures 
as  hawks  and  eagles,  wolves  and  panthers,  shut 
up,  to  gratify  mere  curiosity,  is  a  dreadful  thing?" 

To  that  singular  question  I  knew  not  what  to 
answer.    At  last  I  said: 

"I  think  you  underrate  the  pleasure  they  give. 
We  English  are  so  awfully  fond  of  animals!" 

9 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

2§ 

We  had  entered  Battersea  Park  bv  now,  and 
since  my  remark  about  our  love  of  beasts  we  had 
not  spoken.  A  wood-pigeon  which  had  been 
strutting  before  us  just  then  flew  up  into  a  tree, 
and  began  puffing  out  its  breast.  Seeking  to 
break  the  silence,  I  said: 

"Pigeons  are  so  complacent." 

My  friend  smiled  in  his  dubious  way,  and  an- 
swered : 

"Do  you  know  the  'blue  rock'?" 

"No." 

"Ah!  there  you  have  a  pigeon  who  has  less 
complacency  than  any  living  thing.  You  see,  it 
depends  on  circumstances.  Suppose,  for  instance, 
that  we  happened  to  keep  Our  Selves — perhaps 
the  most  complacent  class  of  human  beings — in 
a  large  space  enclosed  by  iron  railings,  feeding 
them  up  carefully,  until  their  natural  instincts 
caused  them  to  run  up  and  down  at  a  consider- 
able speed  from  side  to  side  of  the  enclosure. 
And  suppose  when  we  noticed  that  they  had  at- 
tained the  full  speed  and  strength  of  their  legs, 
we  took  them  out,  holding  them  gingerly  in  order 
that  they  might  not  become  exhausted  by  strug- 
gling, and  placed  them  in  little  tin  compartments 
so  dark  and  stuffy  that  they  would  not  care  of 

10 


FOR  LOVE  OF  BEASTS 

their  own  accord  to  stay  there,  and  then  stood 
back  about  thirty  paces,  with  a  shotgun,  and 
pressed  a  spring  which  let  the  tin  compartment 
collapse.  And  then,  as  each  one  of  Our  Selves 
ran  out,  we  let  fly  with  the  right  barrel  and  pep- 
pered him  in  the  tail,  whereon,  if  he  fell,  we  sent 
a  dog  out  to  fetch  him  in  by  the  slack  of  his 
breeches,  and  after  holding  him  idly  for  a  min- 
ute by  the  neck,  we  gave  it  a  wring  round;  or, 
if  he  did  not  fall,  we  prayed  heaven  at  once,  and 
let  fly  with  the  left  barrel.  Do  you  think  in  these 
circumstances  Our  Selves  would  be  complacent?" 

"Don't  be  absurd!"  I  said. 

"Very  well,"  he  replied,  "I  will  come  to  'blue 
rocks' — do  you  still  maintain  that  they  are  so 
complacent  as  to  deserve  their  fate?" 

"I  don't  know — I  know  nothing  about  their 
fate." 

"What  the  eyes  do  not  swallow,  the  heart  does 
not  throw  up !  There  are  other  places,  but — 
have  you  been  to  Monte  Carlo?" 

"No,  and  I  should  never  think  of  going  there." 

"Oh,  well,"  he  answered,  "it's  a  great  place; 
but  there's  just  one  little  thing  about  it,  and 
that's  in  the  matter  of  those  'blue  rocks.'  You'll 
agree,  I  suppose,  that  one  can't  complain  of  people 
amusing  themselves  in  any  way  they  like,  so  long 

as  they  hurt  no  one  but  themselves " 

11 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

I  caught  him  up:  "I  don't  agree,  at  all." 

He  smiled:  "Yours  is  perhaps  the  English 
point  of  view.    Still " 

"It's  more  important  that  they  shouldn't  hurt 
themselves  than  that  they  shouldn't  hurt  pigeons, 
if  that's  what  you're  driving  at,"  I  said. 

"There  wouldn't  appear  to  you,  I  suppose,  to 
be  any  connection  in  the  matter?" 

"I  tell  you,"  I  repeated,  "I  know  nothing  about 
pigeon-shooting ! " 

He  stared  very  straight  before  him. 

"Imagine,"  he  said,  "a  blue  sea,  and  a  half- 
circle  of  grass,  with  a  low  wall.  Imagine,  on  that 
grass,  five  traps,  from  which  lead  paths — like  the 
rays  of  a  star — to  the  central  point  on  the  base 
of  that  half-circle.  And  imagine  on  that  central 
point  a  gentleman  with  a  double-barrelled  gun, 
another  man,  and  a  retriever  dog.  And  imagine 
one  of  those  traps  opening,  and  a  little  dazed 
gray  bird  (not  a  bit  like  that  fellow  you  saw  just 
now)  emerge,  and  fly  perhaps  six  yards.  And 
imagine  the  sound  of  the  gun  and  the  little  bird 
dipping  in  its  flight,  but  struggling  on.  And 
imagine  the  sound  of  the  gun  again,  and  the  lit- 
tle bird  falling  to  the  ground  and  wriggling  on 
along  it.  And  imagine  the  retriever  dog  run  for- 
ward and  pick  it  up  and  walk  slowly  back  with 
it,  still  quivering,   in  his  mouth.     Or  imagine, 

12 


FOR  LOVE  OF  BEASTS 

once  in  a  way,  the  little  bird  drop  dead  as  a  stone 
at  the  first  sound.  Or  imagine  again,  that  it 
winces  at  the  shots,  yet  carries  on  over  the 
boundaiy,  to  fall  into  the  sea.  Or — but  this  very 
seldom — imagine  it  wing  up  and  out,  unhurt,  to 
the  first  freedom  it  has  ever  known.  My  friend, 
the  joke  is  this:  To  the  man  who  lets  no  little 
bird  away  to  freedom  comes  much  honour,  and  a 
nice  round  sum  of  money !  Do  you  still  think 
there  is  no  connection?" 

"Well,"  I  said,  "it  doesn't  sound  too  sports- 
manlike. And  yet,  I  suppose,  looking  at  it 
quite  broadly,  it  does  minister  in  a  sort  of  way  to 
the  law  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest." 

"In  which  species — man  or  pigeon?" 

"The  sportsman  is  necessary  to  the  expansion 
of  Empire.  Besides  you  must  remember  that  one 
does  not  expect  high  standards  at  Monte  Carlo." 

He  looked  at  me.  "Do  you  never  read  any 
sporting  paper?"  he  asked. 

"No." 

"Did  you  ever  hunt  the  carted  stag?" 

"No,  I  never  did." 

"Well,  you  have  been  coursing,  anyway." 

"Certainly;  but  there's  no  comparing  that 
with  pigeon-shooting." 

"In  coursing,  I  admit,"  he  said,  "there's  plea- 
sure to  the  dogs,  and  some  chance  for  the  hare, 

13 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

which,  besides,  is  not  in  captivity.  Also  that  where 
there  is  no  coursing  there  are  few  hares,  in  these 
days.  And  yet — "  he  seemed  to  fall  into  a 
reverie. 

Then,  looking  at  me  in  a  queer,  mournful  sort 
of  way,  he  said  suddenly : 

"I  don't  wish  to  attack  that  sport,  when 
there  are  so  many  much  worse,  but  by  way  of 
showing  you  how  liable  all  these  things  are  to 
contribute  to  the  improvement  of  our  species,  I 
will  tell  you  a  little  experience  of  my  own.  When 
I  was  at  college,  I  was  in  a  rather  sporting  set; 
we  hunted,  and  played  at  racing,  and  loved  to  be 
'au  courant'  with  all  that  sort  of  thing.  One 
year  it  so  happened  that  the  uncle  of  one  of  us 
won  the  Waterloo  Cup  with  a  greyhound  whose 
name  was — never  mind.  We  became  at  once 
ardent  lovers  of  the  sport  of  coursing,  consumed 
by  the  desire  to  hold  a  Waterloo  Cup  Meeting  in 
miniature,  with  rabbits  for  hares  and  our  own 
terriers  for  greyhounds.  Well,  we  held  it;  sixteen 
of  us  nominating  our  dogs.  Now,  kindly  note 
that  of  those  sixteen,  eight  at  least  were  mem- 
bers of  the  aristocracy,  and  all  had  been  at  public 
schools  of  standing  and  repute.  For  the  purposes 
of  our  meeting,  of  course,  we  required  fifteen 
rabbits  caught  and  kept  in  bags.  These  we  or- 
dered of  a  local  blackguard,  with  a  due  margin 

14 


FOR  LOVE  OF  BEASTS 

over  to  provide  against  such  of  the  rabbits  as 
might  die  of  fright  before  they  were  let  out,  or 
be  too  terrified  to  run  after  being  loosed.  We 
made  the  fellow  whose  uncle  had  won  the  Water- 
loo Cup  judge,  apportioned  among  ourselves  the 
other  officers,  and  assembled — the  judge  on  horse- 
back, in  case  a  rabbit  might  happen  to  run,  say, 
fifty  yards.  Assembled  with  us  were  many  local 
cads,  two  fourth-rate  bookies,  our  excited,  yap- 
ping terriers,  and  twenty-four  bagged  rabbits. 
The  course  was  cleared.  Two  of  us  advanced, 
holding  our  terriers  by  the  loins;  the  judge  signed 
that  he  was  ready;  the  first  rabbit  was  turned 
down.  It  crept  out  of  the  bag,  and  squatted, 
close  to  the  ground,  with  its  ears  laid  back.  The 
local  blackguard  stirred  it  with  his  foot.  It 
crept  two  yards,  and  squatted  closer.  All  the 
terriers  began  shrieking  their  little  souls  out,  all 
the  cads  began  to  yell,  but  the  rabbit  did  not 
move — its  heart,  you  see,  was  broken.  At  last 
the  local  blackguard  took  it  up,  and  wrung  its 
neck.  After  that  some  rabbits  ran,  and  some 
did  not,  till  all  were  killed !  The  terrier  of  one  of 
us  was  judged  victor  by  him  whose  uncle  had 
won  the  Waterloo  Cup;  and  we  went  back  to 
our  colleges  to  drink  everybody's  health.  Now, 
my  friend,  mark!  We  were  sixteen  decent 
youths,  converted  by  infection  into  sixteen  rab- 

15 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

bit-catching  cads.  Two  of  us  are  dead,  but  the 
rest  of  us — what  do  we  think  of  it  now?  I  tell 
you  this  little  incident,  to  confirm  you  in  your 
feeling  that  pigeon-shooting,  coursing,  and  the  like, 
tend  to  improve  our  species,  even  in  England." 

3§ 

Before  I  could  comment  on  my  friend's  narra- 
tive, we  were  spattered  with  mud  by  passing  riders, 
and  stopped  to  repair  the  damage  to  our  coats. 

"Jolly  for  my  new  coat!"  I  said:  "Do  you 
notice,  by  the  way,  that  they  are  cutting  tails 
longer,  this  spring.  More  becoming  to  a  fellow, 
I  think." 

He  raised  those  quizzical  eyebrows  of  his,  and 
murmured : 

"And  horses'  tails  shorter.  Did  you  see  those 
that  passed  just  now?" 

"No." 

"There  were  none !" 

"Nonsense!"  I  said:  "My  dear  fellow,  you 
really  are  obsessed  about  beasts!  They  were 
just  ordinary." 

"Quite — a  few  scrubby  hairs,  and  a  wriggle." 

"Now,  please,"  I  said,  "don't  begin  to  talk 
of  the  cruelty  of  docking  horses'  tails,  and  tell 
me  a  story  of  an  old  horse  in  a  pond." 

16 


FOR  LOVE  OF  BEASTS 

"No,"  he  answered,  "for  I  should  have  to  in- 
vent that.  What  I  was  going  to  say  was  this: 
Which  do  you  think  the  greater  fools  in  the 
matter  of  fashion — men  or  women?" 

"Oh!    Women." 

"Why?" 

"There's  always  some  sense  at  the  bottom  of 
men's  fashions." 

"Even  of  docking  tails?" 

"You  can't  compare  it,  anyway,"  I  said, 
"with  such  a  fashion  as  the  wearing  of  'aigrettes/ 
That's  a  cruel  fashion  if  you  like !" 

"Ah !  But  you  see,"  he  said,  "the  women  who 
wear  them  are  ignorant  of  its  cruelty.  If  they 
were  not,  they  would  never  wear  them.  No 
gentlewoman  wears  them,  now  that  the  facts 
have  come  out." 

"What  is  that  you  say?"  I  remarked. 

He  looked  at  me  gravely. 

"Do  you  mean  to  tell  me,"  he  asked,  "that 
any  woman  of  gentle  instincts,  who  knows  that  the 
'aigrette,'  as  they  call  it,  is  a  nuptial  plume 
sported  by  the  white  egret  only  during  the  nest- 
ing season — and  that,  in  order  to  obtain  it,  the 
mother  birds  are  shot,  and  that,  after  their  death r 
all  their  young  die,  practically,  from  hunger  and 
exposure — do  you  mean  to  tell  me  that  any  gentle- 
woman,   knowing    that,    wears    them?      Why!. 

17 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

most  women  are  mothers  themselves!  What 
would  they  think  of  gods  who  shot  women  with 
babies  in  anus  for  the  sake  of  obtaining  their 
white  skins  or  their  crop  of  hair  to  wear  on  their 
heads,  eh?" 

"But,  my  dear  fellow,"  I  said,  "you  see  these 
plumes  about  all  over  the  place !" 

"Only  on  people  who  don't  mind  wearing  imi- 
tation stuff." 

I  gaped  at  him. 

"You  need  not  look  at  me  like  that,"  he  said. 
"A  woman  goes  into  a  shop.  She  knows  that 
real  'aigrettes'  mean  killing  mother  birds  and 
starving  all  their  nestlings.  Therefore,  if  she's  a 
real  gentlewoman  she  doesn't  ask  for  a  real 
'aigrette.'  But  still  less  does  she  ask  to  be  sup- 
plied with  an  imitation  article  so  good  that  peo- 
ple will  take  her  for  the  wearer  of  the  real  thing. 
I  put  it  to  you,  would  she  want  to  be  known  as  an 
encourager  of  such  a  practice?  You  can  never 
have  seen  a  lady  wearing  an  'aigrette.'  " 

"What!"  I  said.    "What?" 

"So  much  for  the  woman  who  knows  about 
'aigrettes,'  "  he  went  on.  "Now  for  the  woman 
who  doesn't.  Either,  when  she  is  told  these  facts 
about  'aigrettes'  she  sets  them  down  as  'hys- 
terical stuff,'  or  she  is  simply  too  'out  of  it'  to 
know  anything.    Well,  she  goes  in  and  asks  for 

18 


FOR  LOVE  OF  BEASTS 

an  ' aigrette.'  Do  you  think  they  sell  her  the 
real  thing — I  mean,  of  course,  in  England — 
knowing  that  it  involves  the  shooting  of  mother 
birds  at  breeding  time?  I  put  it  to  you:  Would 
they?" 

His  inability  to  grasp  the  real  issues  aston- 
ished me,  and  I  said: 

"You  and  I  happen  to  have  read  the  evidence 
about  'aigrettes'  and  the  opinion  of  the  House  of 
Lords'  Committee  that  the  feathers  of  egrets  im- 
ported into  Great  Britain  are  obtained  by  killing 
the  birds  during  the  breeding  season;  but  you 
don't  suppose,  do  you,  that  people  whose  com- 
mercial interests  are  bound  up  with  the  selling  of 
' aigrettes'  are  going  to  read  it,  or  believe  it  if 
they  do  read  it?" 

"That,"  he  answered,  "is  cynical,  if  you  like. 
I  feel  sure  that,  in  England,  people  do  not  sell 
suspected  articles  about  which  there  has  been  so 
much  talk  and  inquiry  as  there  has  been  about 
'aigrettes,'  without  examining  in  good  faith  into 
the  facts  of  their  origin.  No,  believe  me,  none  of 
the  'aigrettes'  sold  in  England  can  have  grown 
on  birds." 

"This  is  fantastic,"  I  said.  "Why!  if  what 
you're  saying  is  true,  then — then  real  'aigrettes' 
are  all  artificial;  but  that — that  would  be  cheat- 
ing!" 

19 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

"Oh,  no!"  he  said.  "You  see,  'aigrettes'  are 
in  fashion.  The  word  '  real '  has  therefore  become 
parliamentary.  People  don't  want  to  be  cruel, 
but  they  must  have  'real  aigrettes.'  So,  all  these 
'aigrettes'  are  'real,'  unless  the  customer  has  a 
qualm,  and  then  they  are  'real  imitation  ai- 
grettes.'   We  are  a  highly  civilised  people!" 

"That  is  very  clever,"  I  said,  "but  how  about 
the  statistics  of  real  aigrette  plumes  imported  into 
this  country?" 

He  answered  like  a  flash :  "  Oh,  those,  of  course, 
are  only  brought  here  to  be  exported  again  at  once 
to  countries  where  they  do  not  mind  confessing 
to  cruelty;  yes,  all  exported,  except — well,  those 
that  aren't  /" 

"Oh!"  I  said.  "I  see!  You  have  been  speak- 
ing ironically  all  this  time." 

"Have  you  grasped  that?"  he  answered. 
"Capital!" 

After  that  we  walked  in  silence. 

"The  fact  is,"  I  said  presently,  "ordinary  peo- 
ple, shopmen  and  customers  alike,  never  bother 
their  heads  about  such  things  at  all." 

"Yes,"  he  replied  sadly,  "they  take  the  line 
of  least  resistance.  It  is  just  that  which  gives 
Fashion  its  chance  to  make  such  fools  of  them." 

"You  have  yet  to  prove  that  it  does  make  fools 
of  them." 

20 


FOR  LOVE  OF  BEASTS 

"I  thought  I  had;  but  no  matter.  Take 
horses'  tails — what's  left  of  them — do  you  de- 
fend that  fashion?" 

"Well,"  I  said,  "I " 

"Would  you  if  you  were  a  horse?" 

"If  you  mean  that  I  am  a  donkey ?" 

"Oh,  no!    Not  at  all!" 

"It's  going  too  far,"  I  said,  "to  call  docking 
cruel." 

"Personally,"  he  answered,  "I  don't  think  it 
is  going  too  far.  It's  painful  in  itself,  and  heaven 
alone  knows  what  irritation  horses  have  to  suffer 
from  flies  through  being  tailless.  I  admit  that  it 
saves  a  little  brushing,  and  that  some  people  are 
under  the  delusion  that  it  averts  carriage  accidents. 
But  put  cruelty  and  utility  aside,  and  look  at  it 
from  the  point  of  view  of  fashion.  Can  anybody 
say  it  doesn't  spoil  a  horse's  looks?" 

"You  know  perfectly  well,"  I  said,  "that  many 
people  think  it  smartens  him  up  tremendously. 
They  regard  a  certain  kind  of  horse  as  nothing  with 
a  tail;  just  as  some  men  are  nothing  with  beards !" 

"The  parallel  with  man  does  not  hold,  my 
friend.  We  are  not  shaved — with  or  against  our 
wills — by  demigods!" 

"Exactly!  And  isn't  that  in  itself  an  admis- 
sion that  we  are  superior  to  beasts,  and  have  a 
right  to  some  say  in  their  appearance?" 

21 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

"I  will  not/'  he  answered,  "for  one  moment 
allow  that  men  are  superior  to  horses  in  point  of 
looks.  Take  yourself,  or  any  other  personable 
man,  and  stand  him  up  against  a  thoroughbred, 
and  ask  your  friends  to  come  and  look.  How 
much  of  their  admiration  do  you  think  you  will 
get?" 

It  was  not  the  sort  of  question  I  could  answer. 

"I  am  not  speaking  at  random,"  he  went  on; 
"I  have  seen  the  average  lord  walking  beside  the 
average  winner  of  the  Derby."  He  cackled  dis- 
agreeably. 

"But  it's  just  on  this  point  of  looks  that  peo- 
ple defend  docking,"  I  said.  "They  breed  the 
horses,  and  have  a  right  to  their  own  taste. 
Many  people  dislike  long,  swishy  appendages." 

"And  bull-terriers,  or  Yorkshires,  or  Great 
Danes,  with  natural  ears;  and  fox-terriers  and 
spaniels  with  uncut  tails;  and  women  with  merely 
the  middles  so  small  as  Nature  gave  them?" 

"If  you're  simply  going  to  joke " 

"I  never  was  more  serious.  The  whole  thing 
is  of  a  piece,  and  summed  up  in  the  word  'smart,' 
which  you  used  just  now.  That  word,  sir,  is  the 
guardian  angel  of  all  fashions,  and  if  you  don't 
mind  my  saying  so,  fashions  are  the  guardian 
angels  of  vulgarity.  Now,  a  horse  is  not  a  vulgar 
animal,   and   I   can   never  get   away   from   the 

22 


FOR  LOVE  OF  BEASTS 

thought  that  to  dock  his  tail  must  hurt  his  feel- 
ing of  refinement. " 

"Well,  if  that's  all,  I  dare  say  he'll  get  over 
it." 

"But  will  the  man  who  does  it?" 

"You  must  come  with  me  to  the  Horse  Show," 
I  said,  "  and  look  at  the  men  who  have  to  do  with 
horses;  then  you'll  know  if  such  a  thing  as  dock- 
ing the  tails  of  these  creatures  can  do  them  harm 
or  not.  And,  by  the  way,  you  talk  of  refinement 
and  vulgarity.  What  is  your  test?  Where  is 
the  standard?    It's  all  a  matter  of  taste." 

"You  want  me  to  define  these  things?"  he 
asked. 

"Yes." 

"Very  well !  Do  you  believe  in  what  we  call 
the  instincts  of  a  gentleman?" 

"Of  course." 

"Such  as — the  instinct  to  be  self -controlled; 
not  to  be  rude  or  intolerant;  not  to  'slop  over'; 
not  to  fuss,  nor  to  cry  out;  to  hold  your  head  up, 
so  that  people  refrain  from  taking  liberties;  to 
be  ready  to  do  things  for  others,  to  be  chary  of 
asking  others  to  do  things  for  you,  and  grateful 
when  they  do  them." 

"Yes,"  I  said,  "all  these  I  believe  in." 

"What  central  truth  do  you  imagine  that  these 
instincts  come  from?" 

23 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

"Well,  they're  all  such  a  matter  of  course — I 
don't  think  I  ever  considered." 

"If  by  any  chance,"  he  replied,  "you  ever  do, 
you  will  find  they  come  from  an  innate  worship 
of  balance,  of  the  just  mean;  an  inborn  reverence 
for  due  proportion,  a  natural  sense  of  harmony 
and  rhythm,  and  a  consequent  mistrust  of  ex- 
travagance. What  is  a  bounder?  Just  a  man 
without  sufficient  sense  of  proportion  to  know 
that  he  is  not  so  important  in  the  scheme  of  things 
as  he  thinks  he  is !" 

"You  are  right  there!" 

"Very  well.  Refinement  is  a  quality  of  the 
individual  who  has — and  conforms  to — a  true 
(not  a  conventional)  sense  of  proportion;  and 
vulgarity  is  either  the  natural  conduct  of  people 
without  that  sense  of  proportion,  or  of  people 
who  imitate  and  reproduce  the  tricks  of  refine- 
ment wholesale,  without  any  real  feeling  for  pro- 
portion; or  again,  it  is  mere  conscious  departure 
from  the  sense  of  proportion  for  the  sake  of  cut- 
ting a  dash." 

"Ah!"  I  said,  "and  to  which  of  these  kinds  of 
vulgarity  is  the  fashion  of  docking  horses'  tails  a 
guardian  angel?" 

"Imagine,"  he  answered  gravely,  "that  you 
dock  your  horse's  tail.  You  are  either  horribly 
deficient  in  feeling  for  a  perfectly  proportioned 

24 


FOR  LOVE  OF  BEASTS 

horse  or  you  imitate  what  you  believe — Goodness 
knows  why — to  be  the  refined  custom  of  docking 
horses'  tails  without  considering  the  question  of 
proportion  at  all." 

"Yes,"  I  said,  "but  what  makes  so  many  peo- 
ple do  it,  if  there  isn't  something  in  it,  either  use- 
ful or  ornamental?" 

"Because  people  as  a  rule  do  not  love  propor- 
tion ;  they  love  the  grotesque.  You  have  only  to 
look  at  their  faces,  which  are  very  good  indications 
of  their  souls." 

"You  have  begged  the  question,"  I  said. 
"Who  are  you  to  say  that  the  perfect  horse  is  not 
the  horse ?" 

"With  the  imperfect  tail?" 

"Imperfect?    Again,  you're  begging." 

"As  Nature  made  it,  then.  Oh!"  he  went  on 
with  vehemence,  "think  of  the  luxury  of  having 
your  own  tail.  Think  of  the  cool  swish  of  it. 
Think  of  the  real  beauty  of  it !  Think  of  the 
sheer  hideousness  of  all  that  great  front  balanced 
behind  by  a  few  scrub  hairs  and  a  wriggle !  It  be- 
came ' smart'  to  dock  horses'  tails,  and  smart  to 
wear  'aigrettes.'  'Smart' — 'neat' — 'efficient' — 
for  all  except  the  horse  and  the  poor  egrets." 

"Your  argument,"  I  said,  "is  practically  noth- 
ing but  aesthetics." 

He  fixed  his  eyes  upon  my  hat. 

25 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 


a 


'Well/'  he  said  slowly,  "I  admit  that  neither 
on  horse  nor  on  man  would  long  tails  go  at  all 
well  with  that  bowler  hat  of  yours.  Odd  how  all 
of  a  piece  taste  is !  From  a  man's  hat,  or  a  horse's 
tail,  we  can  reconstruct  the  age  we  live  in,  like 
that  scientist,  you  remember,  who  reconstructed 
a  mastodon  from  its  funny-bone." 

The  thought  went  sharply  through  my  head: 
Is  his  next  tirade  to  be  on  mastodons  ?  Till  I  re- 
membered with  relief  that  the  animal  was  ex- 
tinct, at  all  events  in  England. 

4§ 

With  but  little  further  talk  we  had  nearly 
reached  my  rooms,  when  he  said  abruptly: 

"A  lark!  Can't  you  hear  it?  Over  there,  in 
that  wretched  little  gold-fish  shop  again." 

But  I  could  only  hear  the  sounds  of  traffic. 

"It's  your  imagination,"  I  said.  "It  really  is 
too  lively  on  the  subject  of  birds  and  beasts." 

"I  tell  you,"  he  persisted,  "there's  a  caged  lark 
there.    Very  likely,  half  a  dozen." 

"My  dear  fellow,"  I  said,  "suppose  there  are! 
We  could  go  and  buy  them  and  set  them  free, 
but  it  would  only  encourage  the  demand.  Or 
we  could  assault  the  shopmen.  Do  you  recom- 
mend that?" 

26 


FOR  LOVE  OF  BEASTS 

"I  don't  joke  on  this  subject,"  he  answered 
shortly. 

"But  surely,"  I  said,  "if  we  can't  do  anything 
to  help  the  poor  things,  we  had  better  keep  our 
ears  from  hearing." 

"And  our  eyes  shut?  Suppose  we  all  did  that, 
what  sort  of  world  should  we  be  living  in?" 

"Very  much  the  same  as  now,  I  expect." 

"Blasphemy !    Rank,  hopeless  blasphemy !" 

"Please  don't  exaggerate!" 

"I  am  not.  There  is  only  one  possible  defence 
of  that  attitude,  and  it's  this:  The  world  is — and 
was  deliberately  meant  to  be — divided  into  two 
halves:  the  half  that  suffers  and  the  half  that 
benefits  by  that  suffering." 

"Well?" 

"Is  it  so?" 

"Perhaps." 

"You  acquiesce  in  that  definition  of  the  world's 
nature?  Very  well,  if  you  belong  to  the  first 
half  you  are  a  poor-spirited  creature,  consciously 
acquiescing  in  your  own  misery.  If  to  the  sec- 
ond, you  are  a  brute,  consciously  acquiescing  in 
your  own  happiness,  at  the  expense  of  others. 
Well,  which  are  you?" 

"I  have  not  said  that  I  belong  to  either." 

"There  are  only  two  halves  to  a  whole.  No, 
my  friend,  disabuse  yourself  once  for  all  of  that 

27 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

cheap  and  comfortable  philosophy  of  shutting 
your  eyes  to  what  you  think  you  can't  remedy, 
unless  you  are  willing  to  be  labelled  'brute.'  'He 
who  is  not  with  me  is  against  me/  you  know." 

"Well/'  I  said,  "after  that,  perhaps  you'll  be 
good  enough  to  tell  me  what  I  can  do  by  making 
myself  miserable  over  things  I  can't  help?" 

"I  will,"  he  answered.  "In  the  first  place, 
kindly  consider  that  you  are  not  living  in  a  private 
world  of  your  own.  Everything  you  say  and  do 
and  think  has  its  effect  on  everybody  around  you. 
For  example,  if  you  feel,  and  say  loudly  enough, 
that  it  is  an  infernal  shame  to  keep  larks  and 
other  wild  song-birds  in  cages,  you  will  infal- 
libly infect  a  number  of  other  people  with  that 
sentiment,  and  in  course  of  time  those  people 
who  feel  as  you  do  will  become  so  numerous  that 
larks,  thrushes,  blackbirds,  and  linnets  will  no 
longer  be  caught  and  kept  in  cages.  Whereas,  if 
you  merely  think,  l  Oh !  this  is  dreadful,  quite 
too  dreadful,  but,  you  see,  I  can  do  nothing; 
therefore  consideration  for  myself  and  others  de- 
mands that  I  shall  stop  my  ears  and  hold  my 
tongue/  then,  indeed,  nothing  will  ever  be  done, 
and  larks,  blackbirds,  etc.,  will  continue  to  be 
caught  and  prisoned.  How  do  you  imagine  it 
ever  came  about  that  bears  and  bulls  and  badgers 
are  no  longer  baited;   cocks  no  longer  openly  en- 

28 


FOR  LOVE  OF  BEASTS 

couraged  to  tear  each  other  in  pieces;  donkeys 
no  longer  beaten  to  a  pulp?  Only  by  people 
going  about  and  shouting  out  that  these  things 
made  them  uncomfortable.  How  did  it  come 
about  that  more  than  half  the  population  of  this 
country  are  not  still  classed  as  ' serfs'  under  the 
law  ?  Simply  because  a  few  of  our  ancestors  were 
made  unhappy  by  seeing  their  fellow  creatures 
owned  and  treated  like  dogs,  and  roundly  said  so 
— in  fact,  were  not  ashamed  to  be  sentimental 
humanitarians  like  me." 

"That  is  all  obvious.  But  my  point  is  that 
there  is  moderation  in  all  things,  and  a  time  for 
everything." 

"By  your  leave,"  he  said,  "there  is  little 
moderation  desirable  when  we  are  face  to  face 
with  real  suffering,  and,  as  a  general  rule,  no  time 
like  the  present." 

"But  there  is,  as  you  were  saying  just  now, 
such  a  thing  as  a  sense  of  proportion.  I  cannot 
see  that  it's  my  business  to  excite  myself  about 
the  caging  of  larks,  when  there  are  so  many  much 
greater  evils." 

"Forgive  my  saying  so,"  he  answered,  "but  if 
when  a  caged  lark  comes  under  your  nose,  excite- 
ment does  not  take  hold  of  you,  with  or  against 
your  will,  there  is  mighty  little  chance  of  your 
getting  excited   about  anything.     For,   consider 

29 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

what  it  means  to  be  a  caged  lark — what  pining 
and  misery  for  that  little  creature,  which  only 
lives  for  its  life  up  in  the  blue.  Consider  what 
blasphemy  against  Nature,  and  what  an  insult 
to  all  that  is  high  and  poetic  in  Man,  it  is  to  cage 
such  an  exquisite  thing  of  freedom!" 

"You  forget  that  it  is  done  out  of  love  for  the 
song — to  bring  it  into  towns  where  people  can't 
otherwise  hear  it." 

"It  is  done  for  a  living — and  that  people  with- 
out imagination  may  squeeze  out  of  unhappy 
creatures  a  little  momentary  gratification ! " 

"It  is  not  a  crime  to  have  no  imagination." 

"No,  sir;  but  neither  is  the  lack  of  it  a  thing 
to  pride  one's  self  on,  or  pass  by  in  silence,  when 
it  inflicts  suffering." 

"I  am  not  defending  the  custom  of  caging 
larks." 

"No;  but  you  are  responsible  for  its  continu- 
ance." 

"I?" 

"You!  and  all  those  other  people  who  believe 
in  minding  their  own  business." 

"Really!"  I  said;  "you  must  not  attack  peo- 
ple on  that  ground.  We  cannot  all  be  busy- 
bodies!" 

"  The  Saints  forbid ! "  he  answered.  "  But  when 
a  thing  exists  which  you  really  abhor — as  you  do 
this — I   do   wish   you   would    consider   a   little 

30 


FOR  LOVE  OF  BEASTS 

whether,  in  letting  it  strictly  alone,  you  are 
minding  your  own  business  on  principle,  or  be- 
cause it  is  so  jolly  comfortable  to  do  so." 

"Speaking  for  myself " 

"Yes,"  he  broke  in;  "quite!  But  let  me  ask 
you  one  thing:  Have  you,  as  a  member  of  the 
human  race,  any  feeling  that  you  share  in  the  ad- 
vancement of  its  gentleness,  of  its  sense  of  beauty 
and  justice — that,  in  proportion  as  the  human  race 
becomes  more  lovable  and  lovely,  you,  too,  be- 
come more  lovable  and  lovely?" 

"Naturally." 

"Then  is  it  not  your  business  to  support  all 
that  you  feel  makes  for  that  advancing  perfec- 
tion?" 

"I  don't  say  that  it  isn't." 

"In  that  case  it  is  not  your  business  to  stop 
your  ears,  and  shut  your  eyes,  and  hold  your 
tongue  when  you  come  across  wild  song-birds 
caged." 

But  we  had  reached  my  rooms. 

"Before  I  go  in,"  I  said,  "there  is  just  one 
little  thing  I've  got  to  say  to  you:  Don't  you 
think  that,  for  a  man  with  your  l  sense  of  propor- 
tion/ you  exaggerate  the  importance  of  beasts 
and  their  happiness?" 

He  looked  at  me  for  a  long  time  without  speak- 
ing, and  when  he  did  speak,  it  was  in  a  queer, 
abstracted  voice: 

31 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 


«■ 


:I  have  often  thought  over  that,"  he  said, 
"and  honestly  I  don't  believe  I  do.  For  I  have 
observed  that  before  men  can  be  gentle  and 
broad-minded  with  each  other,  they  are  always 
gentle  and  broad-minded  about  beasts.  These 
dumb  things,  so  beautiful — even  the  plain  ones 
— in  their  different  ways,  and  so  touching  in  their 
dumbness,  do  draw  us  to  magnanimity  and  help 
the  wings  of  our  hearts  to  grow.  No;  I  don't 
think  I  exaggerate,  my  friend.  Most  surely  I 
don't  want  to;  for  there  is  no  disservice  one  can 
do  to  all  these  helpless  things  so  great  as  to  ride 
past  the  hounds,  to  fly  so  far  in  front  of  public 
feeling  as  to  cause  nausea,  and  reaction.  But  I 
feel — I  seem  to  know — that  most  of  us,  deep  down, 
really  love  these  furred  and  feathered  creatures 
that  cannot  save  themselves  from  us — that  are 
like  our  own  children,  because  they  are  helpless; 
that  are  in  a  way  sacred,  because  in  them  we 
watch,  and  through  them  we  understand,  those 
greatest  blessings  of  the  earth — Beauty  and  Free- 
dom. They  give  us  so  much,  they  ask  nothing 
from  us.  What  can  we  do  in  return  but  spare 
them  all  the  suffering  we  can  ?  No,  my  friend,  I 
do  not  think — whether  for  their  sakes  or  our  own 
— that  I  exaggerate." 

When  he  had  said  those  words  he  turned  away, 
and  left  me  standing  there. 

32 


TREATMENT   OF  ANIMALS 


II 


REVERIE  OF  A  SPORTSMAN 

(From  the  Fortnightly  Review,  1915) 

I  set  out  one  morning  in  late  August,  with 
some  potted-grouse  sandwiches  in  one  pocket 
and  a  magazine  in  the  other,  for  a  tramp  toward 
Causdon.  I  had  not  been  in  that  particular  part 
of  the  moor  since  I  used  to  go  snipe-shooting 
there  as  a  boy — my  first  introduction,  by  the 
way,  to  sport.  It  was  a  very  lovely  day,  almost 
too  hot;  and  I  never  saw  the  carpet  of  the  moor 
more  exquisite — heather,  fern,  the  silvery-white 
cotton  grass,  dark  peat  turfs,  and  green  bog- 
moss,  all  more  than  customarily  clear  in  hue 
under  a  veiy  blue  sky.  I  walked  till  two  o'clock, 
then  sat  down  in  a  little  scoop  of  valley  by  a 
thread  of  stream  which  took  its  rise  from  an 
awkward-looking  bog  at  the  top.  It  was  wonder- 
fully quiet.  A  heron  rose  below  me  and  flapped 
away;  and  while  I  was  eating  my  potted  grouse 
I  heard  the  harsh  cheep  of  a  snipe,  and  caught 
sight  of  the  twisting  bird  vanishing  against  the 
line  of  sky  above  the  bog.  "That  must  have 
been  one  of  the  bogs  we  used  to  shoot,"  I  thought; 
and,  having  finished  my  snack  of  lunch,  I  rolled 

33 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

myself  a  cigarette,  opened  the  magazine,  and 
idly  turned  its  pages.  I  had  no  serious  intention 
of  reading — the  calm  and  silence  were  too  seduc- 
tive; but  my  attention  became  riveted  by  an 
exciting  story  of  some  man-eating  lions,  and  I 
read  on  till  I  had  followed  the  adventure  to  the 
death  of  the  two  ferocious  brutes,  and  found  my 
cigarette  actually  burning  my  fingers.  Crushing 
it  out  against  the  dampish  roots  of  the  heather,  I 
lay  back  with  my  eyes  fixed  on  the  sky,  thinking 
of  nothing. 

Suddenly  I  became  conscious  that  between  me 
and  that  sky  a  leash  of  snipe  high  up  were  flight- 
ing and  twisting,  and  gradually  coming  lower;  I 
appeared  indeed  to  have  a  sort  of  attraction  for 
them.  They  would  dash  toward  each  other, 
seem  to  exchange  ideas,  and  rush  away  again, 
like  flies  that  waltz  together  for  hours  in  the  cen- 
tre of  a  room.  As  they  came  lower  and  lower 
over  me,  I  could  almost  swear  I  heard  them  whis- 
per to  each  other  with  their  long  bills;  and  pres- 
ently I  absolutely  caught  what  they  were  saying: 
"Look  at  him!  The  ferocious  brute!  Oh,  look 
at  him!" 

Amazed  at  such  an  extraordinary  violation  of 
all  the  laws  of  nature,  I  began  to  rub  my  ears, 
when  I  distinctly  heard  the  "Go  back,  go 
back"  of  an  old  cock  grouse  and,  turning  my 

34 


REVERIE   OF  A  SPORTSMAN 

head  cautiously,  saw  him  perched  on  a  heath- 
ery knob  within  twenty  yards  of  where  I  lay. 
Now,  I  knew  very  well  that  all  efforts  to  intro- 
duce grouse  on  Dartmoor  have  been  quite  unsuc- 
cessful, since  for  some  reason  connected  with  the 
quality  of  the  heather,  the  nature  of  the  soil,  or 
the  overmild  dampness  of  the  air,  this  king  of 
game  birds  most  unfortunately  refuses  to  become 
domiciled  there;  so  that  I  could  hardly  credit 
my  senses.  But  suddenly  I  heard  him  also: 
"Look  at  him!  Go  back!  The  ferocious  brute ! 
Go  back!"  He  seemed  to  be  speaking  to  some- 
thing just  below;  and  there,  sure  enough,  was 
the  first  hare  I  had  ever  seen  out  on  the  full  of 
the  moor.  I  have  always  thought  a  hare  a  jolly 
beast,  and  not  infrequently  felt  sorry  when  I 
rolled  one  over;  it  has  a  way  of  crying  like  a  child 
if  not  killed  outright.  I  confess  then,  that  in 
hearing  it,  too,  whisper:  "Look  at  him!  The 
ferocious  brute!  Oh,  look  at  him!"  I  experi- 
enced the  sensation  that  comes  over  one  when 
one  has  not  been  quite  fairly  treated.  Just  at 
that  moment,  with  a  warm  stirring  of  the  air, 
there  pitched  within  six  yards  of  me  a  magnifi- 
cent old  black-cock — the  very  spit  of  that  splen- 
did fellow  I  shot  last  season  at  Balnagie,  whose 
tail  my  wife  now  wears  in  her  hat.  He  was  ac- 
companied by  four  gray-hens,  who,  settling  in  a 

35 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

semicircle,  began  at  once:  "Look  at  him!  Look 
at  him !  The  ferocious  brute !  Oh,  look  at  him !" 
At  that  moment  I  say  with  candour  that  I  re- 
gretted the  many  times  I  have  spared  gray-hens, 
with  the  sportsmanlike  desire  to  encourage  their 
breed. 

For  several  bewildered  minutes  after  that  I 
could  not  turn  my  eyes  without  seeing  some  bird 
or  other  alight  close  by  me:  more  and  more  grouse, 
and  black  game,  pheasants,  partridges — not  only 
the  excellent  English  bird,  but  the  very  sporting 
Hungarian  variety — and  that  unsatisfactory  red- 
legged  Frenchman  which  runs  any  distance  rather 
than  get  up  and  give  you  a  decent  shot  at  him. 
There  were  woodcock,  too,  those  twisting  delights 
of  the  sportsman's  heart,  whose  tiny  wing-feather 
trophies  have  always  given  me  a  distinct  sensa- 
tion of  achievement  when  pinned  in  the  side  of 
my  shooting-cap ;  wood-pigeons,  too,  very  shy  and 
difficult,  owing  to  the  thickness  of  their  breast 
feathers,  and,  after  all,  only  coming  under  the 
heading  "sundry";  wild  duck,  with  their  snaky 
dark  heads,  that  I  have  shot  chiefly  in  Canada, 
lurking  among  rushes  in  twilight  at  flighting 
time — a  delightful  sport,  exciting,  as  the  darkness 
grows;  excellent  eating,  too,  with  red  pepper  and 
sliced  oranges  in  oil !  Certain  other  sundries  kept 
coming  also;   landrails,  a  plump,  delicious  little 

36 


REVERIE  OF  A  SPORTSMAN 

bird;  green  and  golden  plover;  even  one  of  those 
queer  little  creatures,  moor-hens,  that  always 
amuse  one  by  their  quick,  quiet  movements, 
plaintive  note,  and  quaint  curiosity,  though  not 
really,  of  course,  fit  to  shoot,  with  their  niggling 
flight  and  fishy  flavour!  Ptarmigan,  too,  a  bird 
I  admire  very  much,  but  have  only  once  or  twice 
succeeded  in  bringing  down,  shy  and  scarce  as 
it  is  in  Scotland.  And,  side  by  side,  the  alpha 
and  omega  of  the  birds  to  be  shot  in  these  islands, 
a  capercailzie  and  a  quail.  I  well  remember 
shooting  the  latter  in  a  turnip  field  in  Lincoln- 
shire^— a  scrap  of  a  bird,  the  only  one  I  ever  saw  in 
England.  Apart  from  the  pleasurable  sensation 
at  its  rarity,  I  recollect  feeling  that  it  was  almost 
a  mercy  to  put  the  little  thing  out  of  its  loneli- 
ness. It  ate  very  well.  There,  too,  was  that 
loon  or  Northern  diver  that  I  shot  with  a  rifle 
off  Denman  Island,  as  it  swam  about  fifty  yards 
from  the  shore.  Handsome  plumage;  I  still  have 
the  mat  it  made.  One  bird  only  seemed  to  refuse 
to  alight,  remaining  up  there  in  the  sky,  and 
uttering  continually  that  trilling  cry  which  makes 
it  perhaps  the  most  spiritual  of  all  birds  that  can 
be  eaten — I  mean,  of  course,  the  curlew.  I  cer- 
tainly never  shot  one.  They  fly,  as  a  rule,  very 
high  and  seem  to  have  a  more  than  natural  dis- 
trust of  the  human  being.    This  curlew — ah !   and 

37 

/M  Qi  Fit 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

a  blue  rock  (I  have  always  despised  pigeon-shoot- 
ing)— were  the  only  two  winged  creatures  one 
can  shoot  for  sport  in  this  country  that  did  not 
come  and  sit  round  me. 

There  must  have  been,  I  should  say,  as  many 
hundred  altogether  as  I  have  killed  in  my  time — 
a  tremendous  number.  They  sat  in  a  sort  of 
ring,  moving  their  beaks  from  side  to  side,  just 
as  I  have  seen  penguins  doing  on  the  films  that 
explorers  bring  back  from  the  Antarctic;  and  all 
the  time  repeating  to  each  other  those  amazing 
words:  "Look  at  him!  The  ferocious  brute! 
Oh,  look  at  him!" 

Then,  to  my  increased  astonishment,  I  saw  be- 
hind the  circles  of  the  birds  a  number  of  other 
animals  besides  the  hare.  At  least  five  kinds  of 
deer— the  red,  the  fallow,  the  roe,  the  common 
deer,  whose  name  I've  forgotten,  which  one  finds 
in  Vancouver  Island,  and  the  South  African 
springbok,  that  swarm  in  from  the  Karoo  at 
certain  seasons,  among  which  I  had  that  happy 
week  once  in  Namaqualand,  shooting  them  from 
horseback  after  a  gallop  to  cut  them  off— very 
good  eating  as  camp  fare  goes,  and  making  nice 
rugs  if  you  sew  their  skins  together.  There,  too, 
was  the  hyena  I  missed,  probably  not  altogether; 
but  he  got  off,  to  my  chagrin— queer-looking 
brute !  _  Rabbits,  of  course,  had  come — hundreds 

38 


REVERIE  OF  A  SPORTSMAN 

and  hundreds  of  them.  If — like  everybody 
else — I've  done  such  a  lot  of  it,  I  can't  honestly 
say  I've  ever  cared  much  for  shooting  rabbits, 
though  the  effect  is  neat  enough  when  you  get 
them  just  right,  and  they  turn  head  over  heels— 
and,  anyway,  the  prolific  little  brutes  have  to  be 
kept  down.  There,  too,  actually  was  my  wild 
ostrich — the  one  I  galloped  so  hard  after,  letting 
off  my  Winchester  at  half  a  mile,  only  to  see  him 
vanish  over  the  horizon.  Next  him  was  the  bear 
whose  lair  I  came  across  at  the  Nanaimo  Lakes. 
How  I  did  lurk  about  to  get  that  fellow!  And, 
by  Jove !  close  to  him,  two  cougars.  I  never  got 
a  shot  at  them,  never  even  saw  one  of  the  brutes 
all  the  time  I  was  camping  in  Vancouver  Island, 
where  they  lie  flat  along  the  branches  over  your 
head,  waiting  to  get  a  chance  at  deer,  sheep, 
dog,  pig,  or  anything  handy.  But  they  had  come 
now  sure  enough,  glaring  at  me  with  their  green- 
ish cats'  eyes — powerful-looking  creatures!  And 
next  them  sat  a  little  meerkat — not  much  larger 
than  a  weasel — without  its  head !  Ah,  yes ! — 
that  trial  shot,  as  we  trekked  out  from  Rous's 
farm,  and  I  wanted  to  try  the  little  new  rifle  I 
had  borrowed.  It  was  sitting  over  its  hole  fully 
seventy  yards  from  the  wagon,  quite  unconscious 
of  danger.  I  just  took  aim  and  pulled ;  and  there 
it  was,  without  its  head,  fallen  across  its  hole. 

39 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

I  remember  well  how  pleased  our  ' boys'  were. 
And  I,  too !    Not  a  bad  little  rifle,  that ! 

Outside  the  ring  of  beasts  I  could  see  foxes 
moving,  not  mixing  with  the  stationary  creatures, 
as  if  afraid  of  suggesting  that  I  had  shot  them, 
instead  of  being  present  at  their  deaths  in  the 
proper  fashion.  One,  quite  a  cub,  kept  limping 
round  on  three  legs— the  one,  no  doubt,  whose 
pad  was  given  me,  out  cubbing,  as  a  boy.  I  put 
that  wretched  pad  in  my  hat-box,  and  forgot  it, 
so  that  I  was  compelled  to  throw  the  whole  stink- 
ing show  away.  There  were  quite  a  lot  of  grown 
foxes;  it  certainly  showed  delicacy  on  their  part, 
not  sitting  down  with  the  others.  There  was 
really  a  tremendous  crowd  of  creatures  alto- 
gether by  this  time !  I  should  think  every  beast 
and  bird  I  ever  shot  or  even  had  a  chance  of  kill- 
ing must  have  been  there,  and  all  whispering: 
"Look  at  him!  The  ferocious  brute!  Oh,  look 
at  him !" 

Animal-lover,  as  every  true  sportsman  is,  those 
words  hurt  me.  If  there  is  one  thing  on  which 
we  sportsmen  pride  ourselves,  and  legitimately, 
it  is  a  humane  feeling  toward  all  furred  and 
feathered  creatures — and,  as  every  one  knows,  we 
are  foremost  in  all  efforts  to  diminish  their  un- 
necessary sufferings. 

The  corroboree  about  me  which  they  were  ob- 

40 


REVERIE  OF  A  SPORTSMAN 

viously  holding  became,  as  I  grew  used  to  their 
manner  of  talking,  increasingly  audible.  But  it 
was  the  quail's  words  that  I  first  distinguished. 

"He  certainly  ate  me,"  he  said;  "said  I  was 
good,  too!" 

"I  do  not  believe" — this  was  the  first  hare 
speaking — "that  he  shot  me  for  that  reason;  he 
did  shoot  me,  and  I  was  jugged,  but  he  wouldn't 
touch  me.  And  the  same  day  he  shot  eleven 
brace  of  partridges,  didn't  he?"  Twenty-two 
partridges  assented.  "And  he  only  ate  two  of 
you,  all  told — that  proves  he  didn't  want  us  for 
food." 

The  hare's  words  had  given  me  relief,  for  I 
somehow  dislike  intensely  the  gluttonous  notion 
conveyed  by  the  quail  that  I  shot  merely  in  order 
to  devour  the  result.  Any  one  with  the  faintest 
instincts  of  a  sportsman  will  bear  me  out  in  this. 

When  the  hare  had  spoken  there  was  a  mur- 
mur all  round.  I  could  not  at  first  make  out  its 
significance,  till  I  heard  one  of  the  cougars  say: 
"We  kill  only  when  we  want  to  eat;"  and  the 
bear,  who,  I  noticed,  was  a  lady,  added:  "No 
bear  kills  anything  she  cannot  devour;"  and, 
quite  clear,  I  caught  the  quacking  words  of  a 
wild  duck:  "We  eat  every  worm  we  catch,  and 
we'd  eat  more  if  we  could  get  them."  Then  again 
from  the  whole  throng  came  that  shivering  whis- 

41 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

per:  "Look  at  him!  The  ferocious  brute!  Oh, 
look  at  him ! " 

In  spite  of  their  numbers,  they  seemed  afraid 
of  me,  seemed  actually  to  hold  me  in  a  kind  of 
horror — me,  an  animal-lover,  and  without  a  gun ! 
I  felt  it  bitterly.  "How  is  it,"  I  thought,  "that 
not  one  of  them  seems  to  have  an  inkling  of  what 
it  means  to  be  a  sportsman,  not  one  of  them 
seems  to  comprehend  the  instinct  which  makes 
one  love  sport  just  for  the — er — danger  of  it?" 
The  hare  spoke  again: 

"Foxes,"  it  murmured,  "kill  for  the  love  of 
killing.  Man  is  a  kind  of  fox."  A  violent  dissent 
at  once  rose  from  the  foxes,  till  one  of  them,  who 
seemed  the  eldest,  said:  "We  certainly  kill  as 
much  as  we  can,  but  we  should  always  carry  it 
all  off  and  eat  it,  if  man  gave  us  time — the  fero- 
cious brutes !"  You  cannot  expect  much  of  foxes, 
but  it  struck  me  as  especially  foxy  that  he  should 
put  the  wanton  character  of  his  destructiveness 
off  on  man,  especially  when  he  must  have  known 
how  carefully  we  preserve  the  fox,  in  the  best  in- 
terests of  sport.  A  pheasant  ejaculated  shrilly: 
"He  killed  sixty  of  us  one  day  to  his  own  gun, 
and  went  off  that  same  evening  without  eating 
even  a  wing!"  And  again  came  that  shivering 
whisper:  "Look  at  him!  The  ferocious  brute! 
Oh,  look  at  him!"     It  was  too  absurd!    As  if 

42 


REVERIE  OF  A  SPORTSMAN 

they  could  not  realise  that  a  sportsman  shoots 
almost  entirely  for  the  mouths  of  others.  But 
I  checked  myself  remembering  that  altruism  is  a 
purely  human  attribute.  "They  get  a  big  price 
for  us!"  said  a  woodcock,  "especially  if  they 
shoot  us  early.  I  fetched  several  shillings." 
Really,  the  ignorance  of  these  birds !  As  if  mod- 
ern sportsmen  knew  anything  of  what  happens 
after  a  day's  shooting!  All  that  is  left  to  the 
butler  and  the  keeper.  Beaters,  of  course,  and 
cartridges  must  be  paid  for,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
sin  of  waste.  "I  would  not  think  them  so  much 
worse  than  foxes,"  said  a  rabbit,  "if  they  didn't 
often  hurt  you,  so  that  you  take  hours  dying.  I 
was  seven  hours  dying  in  great  agony,  and  one  of 
my  brothers  was  twelve.  Weren't  you,  brother?" 
A  second  rabbit  nodded.  "But  perhaps  that's 
better  than  trapping,"  he  said.  "Remember 
mother!"  "Ah!"  a  partridge  muttered,  "foxes 
at  all  events  do  bite  your  head  off  clean.  But 
men  often  break  your  wing,  or  your  leg,  and 
leave  you!"  And  again  that  shivering  whisper 
rose:  "Look  at  him!  The  ferocious  brute!  Oh, 
look  at  him !" 

By  this  time  the  whole  thing  was  getting  so  on 
my  nerves  that  if  I  could  have  risen  I  should 
have  rushed  at  them,  but  a  weight  as  of  lead 
seemed  to  bind  me  to  the  ground,  and  all  I  could 

43 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

do  was  to  thank  God  that  they  did  not  seem  to 
know  of  my  condition;  for,  though  there  were  no 
man-eaters  among  them,  I  could  not  tell  what  they 
might  do  if  they  realised  that  I  was  helpless — 
the  sentiments  of  chivalry  and  generosity  being 
confined  to  man,  as  we  all  know. 

"Yes,"  said  the  capercailzie  slowly,  "I  am  a 
shy  bird,  and  was  often  shot  at  before  this  one 
got  me;  and  though  I'm  strong,  my  size  is  so 
against  me  that  I  always  took  a  pellet  or  two 
away  with  me;  and  what  can  you  do  then? 
Those  ferocious  brutes  take  the  shot  out  of  their 
faces  and  hands  when  they  shoot  each  other  by 
mistake — I've  seen  'em;  but  we  have  no  chance 
to  do  that."  A  snipe  said  shrilly:  "What  I  ob- 
ject to  is  that  he  doesn't  eat  us  till  he's  had  too 
much  already.  I  come  in  on  toast  at  the  fifth 
course;  it  hurts  one's  feelings." 

"Ferocious  brute,  killing  everything  he  sees." 
I  felt  my  blood  fairly  boil,  and  longed  to  cry 
out:  "You  beasts !  You  know  that  we  don't  kill 
everything  we  see!  We  leave  that  to  cockneys, 
and  foreigners."  But  just  as  I  had  no  power  of 
movement,  so  I  seemed  to  have  no  power  of  speech. 
And  suddenly  a  little  voice,  high  up  over  me, 
piped  down:  "They  never  shoot  us  larks."  I 
have  always  loved  the  lark;  how  grateful  I  felt 
to  that  little  creature — till  it  added:  "They  do 

44 


REVERIE  OF  A  SPORTSMAN 

worse;  they  take  and  shut  us  up  in  little  traps  of 
wire  till  we  pine  away!  Ferocious  brutes!"  In 
all  my  life  I  think  I  never  was  more  disappointed ! 
The  second  cougar  spoke:  "He  once  passed  within 
spring  of  me.  What  do  you  say,  friends;  shall 
we  go  for  him?"  The  shivering  answer  came 
from  all :  "  Go  for  him !  Ferocious  brute  !  Oh, 
go  for  him !"  And  I  heard  the  sound  of  hundreds 
of  soft  wings  and  pads  ruffling  and  shuffling. 
And,  knowing  that  I  had  no  power  to  move  an 
inch,  I  shut  my  eyes.  Lying  there  motionless, 
as  a  beetle  that  shams  dead,  I  felt  them  creeping, 
creeping,  till  all  round  me  and  over  me  was  the 
sound  of  nostrils  sniffing;  and  every  second  I  ex- 
pected to  feel  the  nip  of  teeth  and  beaks  in  the 
fleshy  parts  of  me.  But  nothing  came,  and  with 
an  effort  I  reopened  my  eyes.  There  they  were, 
hideously  close,  with  an  expression  on  their  faces 
that  I  could  not  read;  a  sort  of  wry  look,  every 
nose  and  beak  turned  a  little  to  one  side.  And 
suddenly  I  heard  the  old  fox  saying:  "It's  im- 
possible, with  a  smell  like  that;  we  could  never 
eat  him !"  From  every  one  of  them  came  a  sort 
of  sniff  or  sneeze  as  of  disgust,  and  as  they  began 
to  back  away  I  distinctly  heard  the  hyena  mut- 
ter: "He's  not  wholesome — not  wholesome — the 
ferocious  brute !" 

The  relief  of  that  moment  was  swamped  by  my 

45 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

natural  indignation  that  these  impudent  birds 
and  beasts  should  presume  to  think  that  I,  a 
British  sportsman,  would  not  be  good  to  eat. 
Then  that  beastly  hyena  added:  "If  we  killed 
him,  you  know,  and  buried  him  for  a  few  days, 
he  might  be  tolerable." 

An  old  cock  grouse  called  out  at  once:  "Go 
back !  Let  us  hang  him !  We  are  always  well 
hung.  They  like  us  a  little  decayed — ferocious 
brutes !  Go  back !"  And  once  more,  I  felt,  from 
the  stir  and  shuffle,  that  my  fate  hung  in  the  bal- 
ance; and  I  shut  my  eyes  again,  lest  they  might 
be  tempted  to  begin  on  them.  Then,  to  my  in- 
finite relief,  I  heard  the  cougar — have  we  not  al- 
ways been  told  that  they  were  the  friends  of 
man? — mutter:  "Pah!  It's  clear  we  could  never 
eat  him  fresh,  and  what  we  do  not  eat  at  once, 
we  do  not  touch!" 

All  the  birds  cried  out  in  chorus:  "No!  That 
would  be  crow's  work."  And  again  I  felt  that  I 
was  saved.  Then,  to  my  horror,  that  infernal 
loon  shrieked:  "Kill  him  and  have  him  stuffed — 
specimen  of  Ferocious  Brute !  Or  fix  his  skin  on 
a  tree,  and  look  at  it — as  he  did  with  me !" 

For  a  full  minute  I  could  feel  the  currents  of 
opinion  swaying  over  me,  at  this  infamous  pro- 
posal; then  the  old  black-cock,  the  one  whose 
tail  is  in  my  wife's  hat,  said  sharply:  "Specimen ! 

46 


REVERIE  OF  A  SPORTSMAN 

He's  not  good  enough!"  And;  once  more,  for 
all  my  indignation  at  that  gratuitous  insult,  I 
breathed  freely. 

"Come !"  said  the  lady  bear  quietly.  "Let  us 
dribble  on  him  a  little,  and  go.  The  ferocious 
brute  is  not  worth  more!"  And,  during  what 
seemed  to  me  an  eternity,  one  by  one  they  came 
up,  deposited  on  me  a  little  saliva,  looking  into 
my  eyes  the  while  with  a  sort  of  horror  and  con- 
tempt, then  vanished  on  the  moor.  The  last  to 
come  up  was  the  little  meerkat  without  its  head. 
It  stood  there;  it  could  neither  look  at  me  nor 
drop  saliva,  but  somehow  it  contrived  to  say: 
"I  forgive  you,  ferocious  brute,  but  I  was  very 
happy!"  Then  it,  too,  withdrew.  And  from  all 
around,  out  of  invisible  presences  in  the  air  and 
the  heather,  came  once  more  the  shivering  whis- 
per: "Look  at  him!  The  ferocious  brute!  Oh, 
look  at  him!" 

I  sat  up.  There  was  a  trilling  sound  in  my 
ears.  Above  me  in  the  blue  a  curlew  was  passing, 
uttering  its  cry.  Ah !  Thank  heaven !  I  had 
been  asleep  !  My  day-dream  had  been  caused  by 
the  potted  grouse,  and  the  pressure  of  the  Review, 
which  had  lain,  face  downward,  on  my  chest, 
open  at  the  page  where  I  had  been  reading  about 
the  man-eating  lions  and  the  death  of  those 
ferocious  brutes.     It  shows  what  tricks  of  dis- 

47 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

proportion  little  things  will  play  with  the  mind 
when  it  is  not  under  reasonable  control. 

And,  to  get  the  unwholesome  taste  of  it  all  out 
of  my  mouth,  I  at  once  jumped  up  and  started  for 
home  at  a  round  pace. 


Ill 

THE  SLAUGHTER  OF  ANIMALS  FOR 

FOOD 

(Papers  in  the  Daily  Mail,  1912)* 

The  thing  is  horrible,  but  it  is  necessary. 
Why,  then,  drag  it  out  into  the  light?  Why 
make  our  thoughts  miserable  with  contemplation 
of  horrors  which  must  exist  ? 

If  it  were  true  that  the  present  methods  of 
slaughtering  animals  for  food  in  this  country 
were  necessary,  if  all  the  suffering  they  involve 
were  inevitable,  I  should  be  the  first  to  say:  "Let 
us  shut  our  eyes!  For  needless  suffering — even 
to  ourselves— is  stupid."  It  is  just  because  this 
particular  suffering  is  avoidable,  and  easily  avoid- 
able, that  one  feels  we  must  face  the  matter  if  we 
want  to  call  ourselves  a  decent  people. 

I  am  a  meat-eater — we  are  nearly  all  meat- 

*  Things  have  moved  a  little,  I  believe,  but  not  nearly  enough. 
— J.  G. 

48 


SLAUGHTER   FOR  FOOD 

eaters.  Well !  We  cannot  sit  down  at  present 
to  a  single  meal  without  complicity  in  methods 
that  produce  a  large  amount  of  preventable  suf- 
fering to  creatures  for  whom  the  least  sensitive 
among  us  has  at  heart  a  certain  friendly  feeling. 
For,  to  those  who  say  that  they  do  not  care  for 
animals,  or  that  animals,  even  domestic  ones,  have 
no  rights  except  such  as  for  our  own  advantage 
we  accord  them,  let  me  at  once  reply:  I  do  not 
agree,  but,  for  the  sake  of  argument,  granted;  and 
then  conceive,  if  you  can,  a  world  without  cattle, 
sheep,  and  pigs,  and  tell  me  honestly  whether  you 
do  not  miss  something  friendly.  No !  the  fact 
is,  we,  who  are  the  descendants  of  countless  gen- 
erations to  whom  these  animals  have  been  liter- 
ally the  breath  of  life,  cannot — even  now  that  we 
have  become  such  highly  civilised  townsmen — 
disclaim  all  sensibility  in  their  regard. 

Consider  the  magnitude  of  this  matter.  The 
calculations  of  an  expert  give  the  following  ap- 
proximate numbers  of  animals  annually  killed  for 
food  in  England  and  Wales:  1,850,000  beasts, 
8,500,000  sheep,  and  3,200,000  pigs.  These  fig- 
ures are  hard  to  come  at,  and  may  be  a  million 
or  so  out,  one  way  or  the  other,  but  even  if  they 
be,  is  there  any  feature  of  the  national  life  which 
can  touch  this  for  possibilities  of  preventable 
physical   suffering?     And  is  there  any   depart- 

49 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

ment  so  neglected  by  public  opinion  and  the 
law? 

Save  the  eating  of  bread,  have  we  any  practice 
in  our  lives  so  consistent  as  that  of  eating  meat, 
or  any  from  which  we,  perhaps  wrongly,  consider 
that  we  derive  more  benefit,  or  any  about  whose 
conditions,  sanitary  or  humane,  we  are  so  care- 
less? 

If  a  donkey  is  beaten  to  death,  a  dog  stoned,  or 
a  cat  killed  with  a  riding-whip,  the  chances  are 
that  a  prosecution  will  ensue  or  a  question  be 
asked  in  Parliament;  for  public  opinion  and  the 
law  lay  it  down  that  the  infliction  of  unnecessary 
suffering  on  animals  is  cruelty,  an  offence  punish- 
able by  fine  or  imprisonment.  But  if  in  slaughter- 
houses some  8,000,000  sheep  are  killed  yearly 
without  first  being  stunned,  by  a  method  which, 
even  in  the  hands  of  an  expert,  produces  some 
seconds  of  acute  suffering  (Report  of  the  Admi- 
ralty Committee  on  Humane  Slaughtering  of  Ani- 
mals, 1904);  if  thousands  of  cattle  require  two 
or  more  blows  of  that  primitive  instrument,  the 
poleaxe  (if  even  only  one  in  a  hundred  cattle  re- 
quires a  second  blow  it  means  18,000  in  a  year) ; 
if  pigs  are  driven  in  gangs  into  a  small  space  and 
there  killed,  one  by  one,  with  the  others  squeal- 
ing in  terror  round  their  dead  bodies;  if  all  this 
preventable   suffering   is   inflicted   daily  in    our 

50 


SLAUGHTER  FOR  FOOD 

slaughter-houses,  what  does  public  opinion  know 
of  it,  and  what  does  the  law  care? 

There  was  a  time  in  this  country  when  men  beat 
their  donkeys,  set  cocks  fighting,  baited  bears  and 
badgers,  tied  tin  pots  to  dogs'  tails,  with  the  light- 
est of  light  hearts  and  no  consciousness  at  all  that 
they  were  outside  the  pale  of  decency  in  doing  so. 
We,their  descendants,  now  look  on  the  unnecessary 
suffering  involved  in  such  doings  with  aversion, 
but  we  still  allow  our  sheep  and  pigs  to  be  killed 
without  stunning,  our  pigs  to  be  driven  in  gangs 
into  the  slaughtering-chamber,  and  the  uncertain 
poleaxe  to  be  used  for  cattle — all  without  a  qualm. 

Why  should  this  enormous  field,  wherein  does 
occur  such  an  amount  of  easily  preventable  suffer- 
ing, be  left  so  unpatrolled  by  the  law,  which  has 
interested  itself  in  warding  off  all  needless  suf- 
fering from  cats  and  dogs  and  horses  ?  Well ! 
The  law  stands  idle  partly  because  the  animals 
we  kill  for  food  are  not  so  near  and  dear  to  us  as 
those  others.  We  should  never  stand  the  horses 
and  dogs  and  cats  we  make  such  pets  of  being 
killed  when  their  time  comes  in  the  manner  in 
which  we  kill  our  sheep  and  pigs.  And  partly 
the  law  stands  idle  because  in  the  case  of  horses 
and  dogs  and  cats  there  is  no  large  leagued  inter- 
est, such  as  that  of  the  meat  trades,  unconvinced 
of  the  need  for  improvement. 

51 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

I  am  told  that  the  meat  trades  constitute  the 
strongest  body  in  the  kingdom.  And  well  they 
may,  considering  the  vast  proportions  of  their 
business.  The  meat  trades  are  controlled  by  men 
like  ourselves;  as  humane,  and  undesirous  of  in- 
flicting unnecessary  suffering;  surely  they  will 
reconsider  their  convictions  and  accept  such  sim- 
ple, elementary  safeguards  against  unnecessary 
suffering  as  were  outlined  by  the  Admiralty  Com- 
mittee on  Humane  Slaughtering,  of  1904.  There 
is  nothing  really  prejudicial  to  their  interest 
in  these  suggestions.  Nothing  extravagant,  or 
experimental.  The  case  has  been  proved  up  to 
the  hilt.  What  is  the  good  of  appointing  a  Gov- 
ernmental Committee  of  first-rate  men*  to  ex- 
amine into  facts  if  their  Report  is  to  be  paid  about 
as  much  attention  to  as  one  would  pay  to  the  sug- 
gestions of  seven  lunatics?  Why  set  going  a 
laborious  inquiry,  for  negligible  or  puny  results? 
It  can  no  longer  be  pretended  that  humane 
killers  are  not  effective,  in  the  face  of  so  much 
evidence  from  abroad;  in  the  face  of  numerous 
testimonials  from  butchers  in  this  country;  in  the 
face  of  the  fact  that  Mr.  Christopher  Cash  (for 
whose  consistent  advocacy  of  humane  slaughter- 
ing the  thanks  of  us  all  are  due)  in  the  year  1910 

*  The  Admiralty  Committee  on  Humane  Slaughtering,  1904. 
Chairman,  Mr.  Arthur  Lee,  M.  P. 

52 


SLAUGHTER  FOR  FOOD 

had  4,000  animals,  the  property  of  thirty  butchers, 
killed  by  'humane'  methods,  and  though  he  was 
in  every  case  willing  to  pay  full  compensation 
for  any  injury  he  might  do  to  a  carcass,  had  not 
one  single  claim  made  on  him.  (From  a  pam- 
phlet entitled,  "The  Humane  Slaughtering  of  Ani- 
mals for  Food,"  by  Christopher  Cash.  Issued  by 
the  R.  S.  P.  C.  A.) 

Butchers  and  slaughtermen  perform  a  neces- 
sary task  from  which  most  of  us  would  shrink, 
and  it  is  both  unbecoming  and  nonsensical  to 
suggest  intentional  cruelty  on  their  part.  /  do 
not  for  a  moment.  But  I  do  say  that  it  is  the 
business  of  the  law  so  to  control  the  methods  of 
slaughter  as  to  obviate,  to  the  utmost,  all  need- 
less suffering,  however  unintentionally  it  may  be 
inflicted. 

In  the  following  brief  summary  of  our  want  of 
system,  I  am  not  dealing  at  all  with  the  Jewish 
method  of  killing,  for,  not  being  a  Jew,  I  cannot 
pretend  to  be  qualified  to  discuss  a  custom  which 
appears  to  have  been  necessary  hitherto  to  the 
peace  of  the  Jewish  mind.  I  only  urge  a  people  in 
some  respects  more  humane  than  ourselves,  to 
search  their  consciences,  and  see  if  they  can  still 
endure  this  method.  Neither  am  I  speaking  as 
to  Scotland,  which  is  ahead  of  us,  having  pro- 
vided by  the  Burgh  Police  Act  of  1892  that  where 

53 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

there  are  public  there  shall  be  no  private  slaugh- 
ter-houses; and  where — at  all  events  in  Edin- 
burgh— they  have  abattoirs  that  compare,  I  am 
told,  with  the  best  on  the  Continent. 

The  following  is  a  rough  outline  of  what  at 
present  seems  good  to  a  nation  which  prides  it- 
self on  being  at  once  the  most  practical  and  the 
most  humane  in  the  whole  world: 

A  mixed  system  of  private  and  public  slaughter- 
houses— thousands  of  private  slaughter-houses 
(some  of  them  highly  unsanitary)  alongside  of  a 
few  municipally  controlled  abattoirs. 

No  regulation  that  where  there  are  public 
abattoirs  there  shall  be  no  private  ones;  hence 
great  difficulty  in  making  these  public  slaughter- 
houses pay  their  way. 

Inspection  of  private  slaughter-houses,  in  spite 
of  all  the  good  intentions  of  local  authorities  and 
medical  officers,  admitted  to  be  very  inefficient  in 
so  far  as  condition  of  meat  and  method  of 
slaughter  are  concerned. 

Supervision  of  public  slaughter-houses  much 
hampered  by  the  present  wide-spread  custom  of 
allowing  butchers  to  send  in  their  beasts  with 
their  own  slaughtermen. 

No  general  statutory  regulations  as  to  method  of 
slaughter.  Model  by-laws  have  been  drawn  up 
by   the   Local   Government   Board   and   recom- 

54 


SLAUGHTER  FOR  FOOD 

mended  to  local  authorities — but  they  are  not 
compulsory  and  have  been  but  sparsely  adopted. 

Slaughtermen  not  licensed;  nor — except  in 
slaughter-houses  directly  controlled  by  a  govern- 
ment department  (such  as  the  Admiralty) — re- 
quired by  law  to  be  proficient  before  they  com- 
mence slaughtering. 

These  are  the  methods  of  slaughter  we  adopt  at 
present : 

Cattle  are  almost  universally  stunned  before 
their  throats  are  cut.  So  far — good !  But  they 
are  still,  for  the  most  part,  stunned  with  the  pole- 
axe.  This  weapon  produces  complete  uncon- 
sciousness at  the  first  blow,  if  well  wielded.  If 
not  well  wielded — /  I  have  been  assured  that  the 
cases  of  misfire  amount  to  a  very  small  percent- 
age. But  on  the  first  two  beasts  slaughtered  be- 
fore my  eyes  the  first  blow  of  the  poleaxe — wielded 
in  each  case  by  an  experienced  slaughterman — de- 
scended without  effect.  The  animals  moaned,  and 
waited  perhaps  a  minute  for  the  second  and  suc- 
cessful blow.  Thanks  to  the  efforts  of  the  Royal 
Society  for  Prevention  of  Cruelty  to  Animals,  the 
Council  of  Justice  to  Animals,  the  Humanitarian 
League,  of  Mr.  Christopher  Cash,  and  others, 
there  are  now  a  considerable  number  of  improved 
instruments  for  stunning  cattle  in  use — the 
Greener  and  Behr  pistols;  the  Royal  Society  for 

55 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

Prevention  of  Cruelty  to  Animals  humane  killer, 
and  large  captive-bolt  pistol;  the  Swedish  cattle- 
killer  (used  throughout  Scandinavia),  and  others. 
But  the  number  of  these  improved  instruments 
in  use  at  present  is  only  a  fringe  to  the  mass  of 
time-hallowed  and  uncertain  poleaxes. 

Calves:  "The  usual  practice  in  this  country 
appears  to  be  to  run  the  animal  up  first  (by  a 
tackle  fastened  to  its  hind  legs)  and  then  to 
stun  it,  previous  to  bleeding."  (Report  of  the 
Admiralty  Committee.)  On  this  method  the 
Committee  thus  commented:  "This  order  of  pro- 
cedure is  not  so  humane,  and  appears  to  be  un- 
necessary. .  .  .  Calves  should  first  be  stunned 
by  a  blow  on  the  head  with  a  club" — i.  e.,  before 
being  run  up.  When  this  Committee  conducted  its 
investigation,  in  1904,  the  best  instruments  for 
stunning  had  not  been  invented. 

Sheep,  with  few  exceptions,  are  not  stunned 
before  they  are  bled.  The  method  of  killing  them 
and  the  amount  of  suffering  they  undergo  are 
thus  summed  up  in  the  report  of  the  Admiralty 
Committee:  "The  usual  method  in  this  country  is 
to  lay  the  sheep  on  a  wooden  ' crutch'  and  then 
to  thrust  a  knife  through  the  neck  below  the  ears, 
and  with  a  second  motion  to  insert  the  point 
from  within,  between  the  joints  of  the  vertebrae, 
thus  severing  the  spinal  cord.    In  the  hands  of  an 

56 


SLAUGHTER  FOR  FOOD 

expert  this  method  is  fairly  rapid  but  somewhat 
uncertain,  the  time  which  elapses  between  the  first 
thrust  of  the  knife  and  complete  loss  of  sensibility 
varying,  according  to  Professor  Starling's  observa- 
tions, from  five  to  thirty  seconds.  In  the  hands  of  an 
inexpert  operator  it  may  be  some  time  before  death 
supervenes,  and  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  this 
method  must  be  very  painful  to  the  sheep  as  long  as 
consciousness  remains. 

"At  the  best  it  is  a  somewhat  difficult  opera- 
tion, and  yet  in  practice  is  often  intrusted  to  the 
younger  and  less  experienced  hands  in  the  slaugh- 
ter-house, the  probable  reason  being  that  sheep 
are  easy  to  handle,  and  do  not  struggle  or  give 
trouble  when  stuck.  ..."  In  other  words,  the 
more  helpless  the  creature  the  less  need  for 
humanity!  "In  Denmark  and  many  parts  of 
Germany  and  Switzerland  the  law  requires  that 
sheep  shall  always  be  stunned  previous  to  being 
stuck,  and  the  Committee  have  satisfied  them- 
selves, by  practical  experiments  and  observation 
that  this  can  be  done  expeditiously  and  without 
difficulty.  A  small  club  with  a  heavy  head  should 
be  used,  and  the  sheep  should  be  struck  on  the 
top  of  the  head  between  the  ears.  This  point  is 
important,  as  it  is  almost  impossible  to  stun  a 
sheep  by  striking  it  on  the  forehead.  ...  It  was 
also    clearly    demonstrated    that    the    stunning 

57 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

caused  no  injury  to  the  sheep's  head  or  to  the 
'scrag  of  mutton'  which  could  in  any  way  de- 
preciate their  market  value." 

Notwithstanding  this  recommendation,  the 
Local  Government  Board  had  (up  to  1915) 
omitted  from  their  model  by-laws  (which,  as  be- 
fore said,  are  not  obligatory)  a  regulation  requir- 
ing the  stunning  of  sheep.  In  1915,  however, 
they  added  the  following  alternative  clause: 
9(B)  'A  person  shall  not  in  a  slaughter-house  pro- 
ceed to  slaughter  any  animal  until  the  same  shall 
have  been  effectually  stunned  with  a  mechanically 
operated  instrument  suitable  and  sufficient  for 
the  purpose.' 

And  in  their  memorandum  they  say:  'At  the 
present  time  the  Board  understand  that  a  "hu- 
mane killer"  can  be  got  which  is  adapted  for 
stunning  any  kind  of  animal,  reasonable  in  cost, 
and  effective  and  simple  in  operation.  It  appears, 
too,  that  the  use  of  the  improved  instrument  can 
readily  be  learnt,  so  that  no  prolonged  training  is 
needed  for  its  proper  manipulation.' 

One  can  only  hope  that  every  Local  Authority 
will  now  adopt  this  clause  and  insist  on  the  stun- 
ning of  sheep  as  well  as  of  all  other  animals. 

Pigs:  "The  Committee  ascertained  that  it  is 
the  usual  practice  in  large  establishments  in  Eng- 
land to  stun  pigs  by  a  blow  on  the  forehead  previ- 

58 


SLAUGHTER  FOR  FOOD 

ous  to  sticking  them,  and  there  is  no  difficulty  in 
carrying  this  out,  as  the  pig's  head  is  soft  as 
compared  with  that  of  the  sheep.  The  Commit- 
tee are  of  opinion  that  the  preliminary  stunning 
should  be  enforced  in  all  cases,  the  evidence  tend- 
ing to  show  that  this  operation  is  often  limited 
to  pigs  which  are  so  large  or  strong  as  to  give 
trouble,  or  to  cases  where,  owing  to  the  location 
of  the  slaughter-house,  the  squeals  of  the  stuck 
pigs  cause  annoyance  to  the  neighbourhood. 
The  Committee  feel  that  considerations  of  humanity 
are  at  least  as  important  as  those  above  mentioned" 
— a  sentiment  with  which  most  of  us  will  presum- 
ably agree.  Note,  however,  that  the  Admiralty 
Committee  refer  above  only  to  large  establish- 
ments. Pigs  still  appear  to  be  killed  in  ways  that 
the  following  quotation  describes:  "I,  with  an- 
other witness,  saw  five  pigs  killed — three  small 
ones  and  two  large  ones.  The  pigs  were  'knifed' 
one  at  a  time  and  allowed  to  wander  round  the 
slaughter-house  bleeding  and  in  a  drunken,  reel- 
ing, rolling  state,  and  at  the  same  time  uttering 
most  plaintive  cries."  (From  a  letter  to  a  daily 
journal.) 

And  Mr.  R.  0.  P.  Paddison  (one  of  the  foremost 
workers  in  the  cause  of  Humane  Slaughtering) 
thus  describes  the  method  adopted  in  most  of  our 
bacon  factories.    "First  the  animals  are  hung  up 

59 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

alive  head  downward  by  a  chain  fastened  to  a 
hind  foot,  and  then  they  are  stuck  and  bleed  to 
death.  The  work  is  done  quickly  in  a  collective 
sense — at  the  rate  possibly  of  100  to  200  pigs  an 
hour,  but  each  individual  pig  suffers  from  forty 
seconds  to  two  or  three  minutes,  and  several  pigs 
struggle  and  shriek  at  the  same  time." 

I  have  not  personally  witnessed  either  of  the 
methods  so  described. 

I  understand  that  some  bacon-curers  consider 
or  did  consider  stunning  cruel,  on  the  ground  that 
several  blows  were  often  required.  The  use  of 
1  humane  killers'  disposes  of  this  objection. 

The  late  eminent  physiologist,  Sir  Benjamin 
Ward  Richardson,  in  a  paper  read  before  the 
Medical  Society  of  London  some  years  ago,  says: 
"  Pigs,  I  have  said,  suffer  a  mental  terror  of  death, 
and  to  them  commonly  is  also  given  a  severe 
degree  of  physical  pain.  .  .  .  When  they  are 
killed  by  the  knife  alone  they  die  by  a  haemorrhage 
that  may  extend  with  persistent  consciousness 
over  three  or  four  minutes  of  time." 

In  relation  to  the  pig's  mental  horror  of  death, 
I  myself  saw  the  following  sight:  Fifteen  or  so 
pigs  in  a  slaughtering-chamber  just  large  enough 
to  hold  them  and  the  slaughterer.  Of  these  pigs 
three  or  four  had  already  been  stunned  and 
knifed  and  lay  dead  and  bleeding  among  their 

60 


SLAUGHTER  FOR  FOOD 

living  brethren,  who  with  manifest  terror  were 
squealing  and  straining  here  and  there  against 
the  walls,  while  the  slaughterer  moved  about 
among  them  selecting  the  next  victim.  A  blow, 
a  cut,  and  there  was  another  dead  pig;  and  this 
would  go  on,  no  doubt,  till  the  whole  fifteen 
were  despatched  and  their  bodies  shot  down 
the  slide.  Terror  of  death !  Yes !  At  all  this, 
by  the  way,  a  boy  of  about  thirteen  was  look- 
ing on — and  this  in  a  public  slaughter-house 
with  a  good  superintendent  and  under  municipal 
control. 

Segregation  of  animals  about  to  be  slaughtered 
from  slaughtering  operations:  "It  appears  to  be 
the  common  practice,  even  in  modern  and  well- 
regulated  slaughter-houses,  to  keep  the  animals 
which  are  immediately  awaiting  slaughter  in  pens 
which  are  mere  annexes  to  the  slaughter-chamber 
itself,  and  in  many  cases  in  full  view  of  all  that 
goes  on  inside.  .  .  .  There  is  no  point  which  the 
Committee  have  more  carefully  investigated  than 
the  question  as  to  whether  animals  do  or  do  not 
suffer  from  fear  from  this  contact,  and  the  evi- 
dence of  those  best  qualified  to  judge  is  so  con- 
flicting that  no  absolute  verdict  can  be  given. 
.  .  .  The  animal  should  be  given  the  full  benefit 
of  the  doubt."  (Report  of  the  Admiralty  Com- 
mittee.) 

61 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

But  the  animal  is  not  given  the  benefit  of  the 
doubt.  Whatever  the  degree  of  consciousness  of 
animals  awaiting  slaughter  (sometimes  for  a  whole 
hour)  just  divided  by  a  door  which,  all  regula- 
tions to  the  contrary,  is  far  from  always  shut, 
whether  they  know  or  not  that  it  is  death  which 
awaits  them,  any  spectator  accustomed  to  animals 
in  their  normal  state  has  only  to  look  at  their 
eyes,  as  they  stand  waiting,  to  feel  sure  that  they 
are  in  fear  of  something. 

Such,  then,  in  brief  and  in  rough,  are  the  con- 
ditions and  methods  of  slaughter  which  still 
seem  good  to  us.  When  the  Admiralty  Committee 
issued  their  report  in  1904  they  made  the  follow- 
ing recommendations: 

(a)  All  animals  (cattle,  calves,  sheep,  lambs, 
and  pigs)  without  exception  must  be  stunned  or 
otherwise  rendered  unconscious  before  blood  is 
drawn. 

(b)  Animals  awaiting  slaughter  must  be  so 
placed  that  they  cannot  see  into  the  slaughter- 
house, and  the  doors  of  the  latter  must  be  kept 
closed  while  slaughtering  is  going  on. 

(c)  The  drainage  of  the  slaughter-house  must 
be  so  arranged  that  no  blood  or  other  refuse  can 
flow  out  within  the  sight  or  smell*  of  animals 

*  I  believe  it  is  the  smell  of  blood  rather  than  the  sight  which 
affects  animals. — J.  G. 

62 


SLAUGHTER  FOR  FOOD 

awaiting  slaughter,  and  no  such  refuse  shall  be 
deposited  in  proximity  to  the  waiting-pens. 

(d)  If  more  animals  than  one  are  being  slaugh- 
tered in  one  slaughter-house  at  one  time  they 
must  not  be  in  view  of  each  other. 

(e)  None  but  licensed  men  shall  be  employed 
in  or  about  slaughter-houses. 

What  has  been  done  to  carry  out  these  recom- 
mendations, the  fruit  of  most  thorough  and  labori- 
ous investigations  carried  out  at  a  considerable 
expenditure  of  public  money,  and  presumably 
with  some  object,  by  men  well  qualified  for  their 
task? 

Just  this  much  has  been  done :  the  recommenda- 
tions have  been  adopted  and  are  worked  success- 
fully by  the  Admiralty  themselves,  and  they  form 
the  basis  of  certain  clauses  in  the  Local  Govern- 
ments' Voluntary  Model  By-Laws,  to  which  at- 
tention is  only  just  beginning  to  be  paid. 

Seeing  that  the  condition  of  affairs  is  such  as 
I  have  detailed;  seeing  that  the  Admiralty  Com- 
mittee made  the  following  wise  remarks:  "How- 
ever humane  and  scientific  in  theory  may  be  the 
methods  of  slaughter,  it  is  inevitable  that  abuses 
and  cruelty  may  result  in  practice,  unless  there  is 
a  proper  system  of  official  inspection";  and,  "In 
the  interests  not  only  of  humanity,  but  of  sanita- 
tion, order,  and  ultimate  economy,  it  is  highly 

63 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

desirable  that,  where  circumstances  permit,  pri- 
vate slaughter-houses  should  be  replaced  by 
public  abattoirs,  and  that  no  killing  should  be 
permitted  except  in  the  latter,  under  official  super- 
vision"; seeing  the  enormous  dimensions  of  this 
matter,  and  that  our  methods  are  behind  those  of 
nearly  every  Continental  country  and  very  much 
behind  those  of  Denmark,  Switzerland,  and  Ger- 
many, it  would  occur  to  the  simple  mind  that  here 
was  eminently  a  case  for  broad  and  sweeping 
action  on  the  part  of  the  legislature. 

I  have  not  even  thought  it  worth  while  to  dwell 
on  the  unsanitary  aspect  of  the  present  system, 
because  the  Royal  Commission  on  Food  from 
Tuberculous  Animals  (again  at  a  considerable  ex- 
penditure of  public  money)  reported  thus:  "The 
actual  amount  of  tuberculous  disease  among  cer- 
tain classes  of  food  animals  is  so  large  as  to  af- 
ford to  man  frequent  occasions  for  contracting 
tuberculous  disease  through  his  food.  We  think 
it  probable  that  an  appreciable  part  of  the  tuber- 
culosis that  affects  man  is  obtained  through  his 
food"; — practically  without  effect !  If  the  public 
likes  to  spend  its  money  on  ascertaining  a  risk  to 
itself  and  likes  to  disregard  that  risk  to  itself 
when  ascertained,  far  be  it  from  me  to  gainsay 
the  public.  But  if  any  one  be  interested  in  the 
sanitary  side  of  our  want  of  system,  let  him  go  to 

64 


SLAUGHTER  FOR  FOOD   . 

the  superintendent  of  some  large  public  slaughter- 
house and  ask  what  percentage  of  meat  is  con- 
demned daily;  then  let  him  ask  some  medical 
officer  of  health  how  far  it  is  possible  to  inspect 
the  condition  of  carcasses  in  private  slaughter- 
houses— and  then  let  him  go  home  and  think! 
There  I  leave  the  matter.  For,  frankly,  it  is  not 
this,  but  the  disregard  by  the  public  of  needless 
suffering  inflicted  on  helpless  creatures,  bred  and 
killed  for  its  own  advantage,  that  moves  me. 
Surely  no  one  can  call  the  following  suggestions 
unreasonable : 

(1)  No  animal  to  be  bled  before  being  stunned  (or 
otherwise  rendered  instantaneously  insensible). 

(2)  No  animal  to  be  slaughtered  in  sight  of  an- 
other animal. 

(3)  No  slaughter  refuse  and  blood  to  be  allowed 
within  sight  or  smell  of  an  animal  awaiting  slaughter. 

(4)  No  stunning  or  slaughtering  implement  to  be 
used  that  has  not  been  approved  by  the  Local  Govern- 
ment Board. 

(5)  The  license  of  no  slaughter-house  to  be  re- 
newed unless  it  possesses  these  approved  stunning  and 
slaughtering  implements,  a  copy  of  official  instruc- 
tions how  to  use  them,  and  can  prove  that  it  does  use 
them  and  them  alone. 

(6)  All  offenders  against  these  regulations  to  be 
liable  to  penalties  on  summary  conviction. 

65 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

Why  has  not  this  simple  harmless  minimum 
of  decent  humanity  been — as  in  other  countries 
— long  ago  adopted?  For  the  usual  reasons: 
Dislike  of  change;  dislike  of  a  little  extra  trouble 
and  a  little  extra  expense;  liberty  of  the  sub- 
ject. To  take  the  last  point  first.  Dictate  to 
a  man  how  he  shall  slaughter  his  own  animals — 
what  next !  Well !  I  am  all  for  liberty  of  the 
subject.  I  am  for  letting  him  hurt  himself  as 
much  as  ever  he  likes.  I  even  go  so  far  as  to  say 
that  prosecutions  for  attempted  suicide  are  wrong 
and  ridiculous;  but  where  the  subject  claims  to 
hurt  the  helpless  with  impunity,  then,  it  seems  to 
me,  time  to  hurt  the  subject. 

I  fancy  that  in  most  men's  minds  there  lurks 
the  feeling:  "Oh!  a  little  extra  suffering  to 
animals  who  are  going  to  die  anyway  in  a  minute 
or  two — what  does  it  matter?  Now,  if  you  were 
to  put  it  on  the  ground  that  it  hurts  the  slaugh- 
terer there'd  be  something  in  it!"  Yes!  It  cer- 
tainly may  hurt  the  morale  of  the  slaughterer — 
but  not  much,  for  he  inflicts  the  needless  suffer- 
ing without  consciousness  of  cruelty;  and  ill  actions 
of  which  one  is  not  conscious  only  negatively  de- 
teriorate morale,  in  so  far  as  they  are  a  waste  of 
time  in  which  good  actions  might  have  been  per- 
formed. But  to  say  that  it  does  not  matter 
whether  we  needlessly  hurt  the  sheep  or  pig  be- 

66 


SLAUGHTER  FOR  FOOD 

cause  they  are  going  to  die  anyway  is  really  to 
say  that  no  suffering  matters,  however  unneces- 
sary, since  we  must  all  die  and  it  will  be  all  the 
same  a  hundred  years  hence.  It  is  at  all  events 
not  a  saying  that  I  can  imagine  coming  out  of  the 
mouth  of  a  human  being  in  perfect  health  and 
the  possession  of  all  his  faculties,  with  a  knife 
going  in  just  behind  his  right  ear  and  wiggling 
about  in  his  neck  and  head  till  it  finds  his  spinal- 
cord  between  the  joints  of  his  vertebrae.  And 
though  you  may  think  that  the  infliction  of  some 
seconds  of  excruciating  torture  on  an  animal  does 
not  really  hurt  the  animal  because  she  cannot 
tell  you  that  it  does — it  conceivably  might  hurt 
you  a  little  to  feel  it  was  needlessly  inflicted. 

The  meat  trades  and  butchers  generally  deny 
the  need  for  change  and  claim  that  the  human- 
ity of  existing  methods  cannot  be  improved  on. 
I  really  cannot  understand  this.  Take  for  ex- 
ample two  conversations  I  had  with  quite  hu- 
mane butchers: 

/:  "  So  you  never  stun  your  sheep  before  bleed- 
ing them?" 

First  Butcher:   "Oh,  no." 

"Why  not?" 
:It  isn't  necessary." 
Not  to  avoid  pain?" 
Oh,  no;  there's  no  pain." 

67 


(C  ■ 
a 


If 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

Ten  minutes  later: 

/:  "You  always  stun  your  cattle  before  bleed- 
ing them?" 

Same  Butcher:  "Oh!  yes,  always." 

"Why?" 

"Oh!  it  avoids  a  lot  of  pain." 

To  the  second  butcher: 

/:  "Then  you  never  stun  your  sheep  before 
bleeding  them." 

Second  Butcher:  "No,  never." 
: Why  not?    Is  there  any  objection?" 
:No,  I  don't  see  any  objection;  only  it's  never 
done.    I've  never  seen  a  sheep  stunned." 

"Just  custom?" 

"Yes,  just  that." 

The  old,  ignorant  prejudice  that  animals  do 
not  bleed  freely  if  stunned  first  is  now,  I  think, 
never  advanced. 

So  much  for  custom,  and  dislike  of  change. 

But  now  we  come  to  what  is  perhaps  the  real 
gravamen  of  the  resistance — a  little  extra  trouble, 
a  suspicion  of  extra  expense.  This  touches  all 
the  points  in  the  irreducible  minimum  of  reform. 
For  instance,  the  various  R.  S.  P.  C.  A.  humane 
killers  cost  about  thirty-five  shillings;  the  Swedish 
cattle-killer  ten  shillings  and  sixpence,  with  car- 
tridges four  shillings  per  hundred;  you  must  spend 
perhaps  an  hour  in  learning  how  to  use  them,  and 

68 


SLAUGHTER   FOR  FOOD 

five  minutes  or  so  per  day  in  cleaning  them.  They 
are  still  new  things,  "fads" — although  they  have 
passed  all  tests,  been  proved  by  dozens  of  testi- 
monials from  butchers  in  this  country  to  be  per- 
fectly efficient,  and  the  Swedish  cattle-killer  is 
used  throughout  several  countries. 

Again,  it  is  convenient  not  to  have  to  be  care- 
ful to  shut  doors  between  slaughtering-chambers 
and  animals  awaiting  slaughter,  or  to  have  to 
pave  your  floors  so  that  blood  runs  well  away 
from  the  waiting-pens.  It  is  handy  (especially  in 
ill-constructed  slaughter-houses)  to  kill  animals  in 
sight  of  each  other.  It  is  always,  in  fact,  a  nui- 
sance to  make  any  change  that  involves  readjust- 
ment. And,  unfortunately,  animals  have  no 
force  behind  them,  are  not  represented  on  the 
public  bodies  of  the  country;  cannot  lobby  in 
the  House  of  Commons,  withdraw  votes,  or  com- 
mit outrages;  cannot  instruct  counsel;  have  no 
rights  save  those  which  mere  chivalry  shall  give 
them.  'Besides/  says  Defence,  'everything  is 
already  done  as  well  as  it  can  be  done.  Switzer- 
land, Demnark — who  knows  whether  they  are 
really  better?  The  ways  of  our  own  country 
are  good  enough  for  us — the  good  old-fashioned 
methods — if  there  were  any  real  need  for  reform 
we  should  be  the  first  to  undertake  it ! '  Waste 
paper,  then,  the  Admiralty  report !    Waste  paper ! 

69 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

I  have  reckoned  that  in  the  case  of  sheep  alone 
the  amount  of  needless  suffering  inflicted  must 
amount  to  some  33,000  hours  of  solid,  uninter- 
rupted death  agony  each  year — (number  of  sheep 
slaughtered  without  stunning,  8,000,000;  period 
of  suffering,  five  to  thirty  seconds — Admiralty 
Committee's  report) — all  preventable  by  a  few- 
strokes  of  the  legislative  pen.  Pleasant  reflec- 
tions for  those  of  us  who  eat  mutton!  But  the 
truth  is,  we  don't  reflect;  or  if  by  any  chance  we 
do,  we  pass  on  with  the  thought :  '  Nothing  can  be 
done  till  the  butchers  themselves  are  convinced!' 
Is  that  true? 

Just  this  far  true:  As  in  every  other  case  of 
new  law,  there  would  be  required  at  first  a  little 
special  activity.  It  is  only  a  question  of  starting 
a  new  standard.  In  two  years'  time,  if  these  sim- 
ple, harmless  regulations  concerning  the  slaugh- 
ter of  animals  for  food  were  enforced — not  merely 
recommended,  as  now — there  would  hardly  be  an 
animal  in  this  country  bled  without  first  being 
stunned  by  humane  methods,  or  any  beasts  watch- 
ing their  fellows  being  killed. 

I  attack  no  one  in  this  matter;  I  blame  no  one, 
for  I  am  not  in  a  position  to — the  charge  of  cal- 
lousness falls  heavily  on  my  own  shoulders,  who 
have  eaten  meat  all  these  years  without  ever 
troubling  as  to  what  went  before  it.    Nor  can  I 

70 


SLAUGHTER  FOR  FOOD 

hope  that  these  words  will  do  more  than  ruffle 
the  nerves  of  the  public ;  but  I  do  trust  that  such 
of  our  legislators  as  may  chance  to  read  them 
may  be  moved  to  feel  that  it  is  their  part,  as  gen- 
tle men,  to  save  patient  creatures,  who  cannot 
plead  in  their  own  behalf,  from  all  suffering  that 
the  satisfaction  of  our  wants  does  not  compel  us 
to  inflict  on  them. 

If  what  I  have  written  has  seemed  extravagant, 
he  who  reads  has  only  to  go  and  see  for  himself. 
And  let  those  who  would  attack  this  plea,  train 
their  guns  on  the  Report  of  the  Admiralty  Com- 
mittee, 1904.  For  I  have  but  conveniently  sum- 
marised the  unanimous  verdict  of  able  and  disin- 
terested men,  who,  officially  appointed  to  examine 
the  whole  matter,  held  many  sittings,  heard  many 
witnesses,  saw  with  their  own  eyes,  and  made 
their  own  experimental  investigations.  I  have, 
in  fact,  done  nothing  but  give  an  added  public- 
ity to  the  deliberate  conclusions  of  an  impartial 
tribunal,  which  had  an  unique  opportunity  of 
forming  and  delivering  a  comprehensive,  dispas- 
sionate judgment,  and  delivered  it — to  what  end  ? 


71 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

IV 
ON  PERFORMING  ANIMALS 

(1) 

(A  Letter  to  the  Daily  Express,  1913) 

Writing  from  the  standpoint  of  one  whose  love 
of  animals  at  one  time  caused  him  to  enjoy  the 
spectacle  of  them  performing  tricks  and  capers, 
into  the  educational  history  of  which  he  never 
thought  of  going,  I  believe  I  well  understand  the 
attraction  of  "the  animal  show"  in  music-halls 
or  circuses.  Nor  do  I  doubt  that  there  are  ani- 
mal trainers  with  such  a  natural  gift  and  love  of 
beasts,  that  the  process  of  training  becomes  al- 
most pleasurable  to  creatures  who  are  not  by  na- 
ture intended  to  ape  mankind. 

I  even  believe  that  there  may  be  animals,  es- 
pecially among  dogs,  who  grow  to  appreciate  the 
glamour  of  the  footlights  and  the  sense  of  their 
own  importance.  But  when  all  this  is  said,  I 
have  come  to  abominate  the  thought  of  the  whole 
thing,  and  I  fancy  that  any  one  who  takes  the 
trouble  to  think  the  matter  out,  any  one  who  does 
not  allow  his  natural  delight  in  animals  to  run 
away  with  his  sense  of  proportion  and  the  fitness 
of  things,  must  come  to  the  same  conclusion. 

72 


PERFORMING  ANIMALS 

To  simply  bring  a  horse,  a  dog,  a  cat,  or  even 
an  elephant  or  camel  on  the  stage  as  part  of  the 
atmosphere  or  machinery  of  a  play,  treating  it 
with  the  kindness  that  is  invariable  I  believe  in 
such  cases,  is  one  thing,  and  I  by  no  means  object 
to  it.  But  the  deliberate  training  and  use,  for 
the  purpose  of  making  a  living  out  of  them,  of 
numbers  of  animals,  taking  them  from  place  to 
place,  hall  to  hall,  suitable  or  unsuitable,  is  a  very 
different  'proposition/  as  Americans  would  say. 

The  very  nature  of  it  invites  suffering.  And  I 
do  not  well  see  how  any  amount  of  inspection  and 
the  granting  of  licenses  is  going  to  do  away  with 
the  greater  part  of  a  wretchedness  that  comes 
from  forcing  creatures  away  from  more  or  less 
natural  to  highly  unnatural  conditions  of  life;  nor 
can  I  see  how,  for  the  purpose  of  granting  licenses, 
satisfactory  evidence  is  ever  going  to  be  obtained 
that  training  (which  is  and  must  be  quite  a  pri- 
vate affair  between  trainer  and  animal)  is  not  ac- 
companied by  cruelty. 

In  a  word,  I  would  like  to  see  the  "animal 
show"  abolished  in  this  country.  It  is  too  ironi- 
cal altogether  that  our  love  of  beasts  should 
make  us  tolerate  and  even  enjoy  what  our  com- 
mon sense,  when  we  let  it  loose,  tells  us  must  in 
the  main  spell  misery  for  the  creatures  we  profess 
to  be  so  fond  of. 

73 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 
(2) 

(A  speech  made  at  Kensington  Town  Hall,  1913) 

I  am  here  to  say  a  very  few  words  on  the  whole 
question  of  the  treatment  of  animals  by  our  civi- 
lised selves.  For  I  have  no  special  knowledge, 
like  some  who  will  speak  to  you,  of  the  training 
of  performing  animals;  I  have  only  a  certain 
knowledge  of  human  and  animal  natures,  and  a 
common  sense  which  tells  me  that  wild  animals 
are  more  happy  in  freedom  than  in  captivity — 
domestic  animals  more  happy  as  companions 
than  as  clowns.  And,  quite  apart  from  the  defi- 
nite question  of  inhumanity,  it  is  perfectly  clear 
to  me  that  these  animal  shows  are  among  the  many 
surviving  evidences,  the  lingering  symptoms,  of 
a  creed  that— thank  heaven!— is  beginning  to 
pass,  and  must  pass,  from  us.  That  creed  said: 
We  human  beings  have  the  right,  for  our  plea- 
sure, convenience,  and  distraction,  to  disregard  in 
the  matter  of  dumb  creatures  those  principles 
which  our  religion,  morality,  and  education  fix  as 
the  guiding  stars  of  our  conduct  toward  human 
beings.  (Please  note  that  I  do  not  touch  on  the 
question  of  our  rights  over  dumb  creatures  in  so 
far  as  our  actual  self-preservation  is  concerned; 
I  limit  my  words  to  pleasure,  convenience,  profit, 
and  distraction.) 

74 


PERFORMING  ANIMALS 

Now:  "Do  unto  others  as  you  would  they 
should  do  unto  you !"  is  not  only  the  first  princi- 
ple of  Christianity,  but  the  first  principle  of  all 
social  conduct;  the  essence  of  that  true  gentility 
which  is  the  only  saving  grace  of  men  and  women 
in  all  ranks  of  life.  And  I  am  certain  that  the 
word  "others"  cannot  any  longer  be  limited  to 
the  human  creature.  Whether  or  no  animals 
have  what  are  called  "rights"  is  an  academic 
question  of  no  value  whatever  in  the  considera- 
tion of  this  matter.  But,  lest  there  be  any  one 
who  wishes  to  take  up  this  point  of  abstruse  phi- 
losophy, I  admit  at  once  that  animals  have  no 
more  rights  than  have  babies  under  the  age  when 
they  may  be  said  to  have  duties  (on  which  rights, 
we  are  told,  depend),  that  animals  have  no  more 
rights  than  imbeciles,  or  those  who  are  deaf,  dumb, 
and  blind.  Rights  or  no  rights,  I  care  not;  the 
fact  remains  that  by  so  much  as  we  inflict  on  sen- 
tient creatures  unnecessary  suffering,  by  so  much 
have  we  outraged  our  own  consciences,  by  so 
much  fallen  short  of  that  secret  standard  of  gen- 
tleness and  generosity  that,  believe  me,  is  the  one 
firm  guard  of  our  social  existence,  the  one  bul- 
wark we  have  against  relapse  into  savageiy. 
Once  admit  that  we  have  the  right  to  inflict  un- 
necessary suffering,  and  you  have  destroyed  the 
very  basis  of  human  society,  as  we  know  it  in 

75 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

this  age.  You  have  committed  blasphemy,  the 
only  blasphemy  that  really  matters — against 
your  conscience.  For  the  true  conscience  of  this 
country  is  proved  by  the  wording  of  the  law, 
with  its  ruling  that  the  infliction  of  unnecessary 
suffering  is  an  offence;  and  in  a  country  like  this, 
the  law  does  not  precede,  but  follows,  conscience. 
Let  me  quote  the  law,  and  the  latest  judicial  dic- 
tum on  it. 

Section  I  (1)  of  the  Protection  of  Animals  Act, 
1911: 

"If  any  person  (a)  shall  cruelly  ill-treat  any  animal 
...  or  being  the  owner  shall  by  .  .  .  unreasonably  doing 
or  omitting  to  do  any  act  .  .  .  cause  any  unnecessary 
suffering,"  he  shall  be  guilty  of  an  offence. 

And  Mr.  Justice  Darling,  on  November  19,  1913, 
said: 

"Where  unnecessary  suffering  is  caused  by  some  act 
of  an  owner,  it  cannot  be  justified  on  the  ground  of  old 
custom,  and  of  benefit  to  commercial  persons." 

Nothing  so  endangers  the  fineness  of  the  human 
heart  as  the  possession  of  power  over  others; 
nothing  so  corrodes  it  as  the  callous  or  cruel  ex- 
ercise of  that  power;  and  the  more  helpless  the 
creature  over  whom  power  is  cruelly  or  callously 
exercised,  the  more  the  human  heart  is  corroded. 

76 


PERFORMING   ANIMALS 

It  is  recognition  of  this  truth  which  has  brought 
the  conscience  of  our  age,  and  with  it  the  law, 
to  say  that  we  cannot  any  longer  with  impunity 
regard  ourselves  as  licensed  torturers  of  the  rest 
of  creation;  that  we  cannot,  for  our  own  sakes, 
afford  it. 

In  all  this  matter,  then,  of  the  treatment  of 
animals,  it  comes  to  the  definition  of  the  words 
"unnecessary  suffering."  And  I  say  this:  All 
suffering  that  is  inflicted  merely  for  our  pleasure, 
distraction,  and  even  for  our  convenience  and 
profit,  as  distinct  from  our  preservation,  is  un- 
necessary and  an  abomination.  And  the  fact 
that  it  is  inflicted  on  creatures  unable  to  raise 
hand  to  help  themselves,  or  voice  to  tell  us  what 
they  suffer,  makes  it  ever  the  more  abominable. 
Whether  it  be  the  destruction  of  mother  birds 
(with  their  whole  families  of  nestlings)  for  the 
sake  of  the  nuptial  plumes  to  be  worn  in  the 
hats  and  hair  of  human  mothers;  or  the  painful 
docking  of  the  tails  of  horses,  their  sole  weapon 
against  the  torment  of  stinging  flies,  for  the  sake 
of  an  ugly  fashion ;  whether  it  be  the  treacherous 
sale  of  horses  worn  out  in  our  service;  the  snar- 
ing of  rabbits  in  needlessly  cruel  traps;  the  turn- 
ing adrift  of  friendly  but  unwanted  dogs  and  cats; 
whether  it  be  the  unnecessarily  slow  and  painful 
slaughtering  of  animals  for  food;    the  wretched 

77 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

keeping  in  captivity  of  wild  song-birds;  the  prison- 
ing of  eagles,  hawks,  and  many  another  creature 
that  cannot  bear  confinement,  in  zoos  and  other 
places;  whether  it  be  any  of  these,  or  this  some- 
times distressing  and  always  unnatural  training  of 
performing  animals — in  all,  suffering  is  inflicted  for 
our  pleasure,  distraction,  convenience,  or  profit, 
and  all  of  it  is  unnecessary,  all  against  the  con- 
science of  the  age. 

To  those  who,  tempted  by  the  devil  of  irre- 
flection,  say,  "But  this  is  the  creed  of  senti- 
ment and  softness,"  I  return  the  answer:  "Sir, 
no  man  ever  became  a  stoic,  and  acquired  the 
virtues  of  fortitude  and  courage,  by  inflicting  pain 
on  others."  There  is  nothing  in  this  new  creed 
that  prevents  any  one  from  inflicting  on  himself 
as  much  hardship,  risk,  and  privation  as  he  con- 
siders needful  to  inspire  him  with  fortitude. 

Let  me  draw  your  attention  to  an  anomaly, 
which  accounts  for  most  of  our  callousness  toward 
the  sufferings  of  animals.  Nearly  every  one  who 
witnesses  with  his  own  eyes  the  infliction  of  need- 
less pain  on  an  animal  feels  revolted,  and  even 
hastens  to  the  creature's  aid;  yet  these  same 
men  and  women,  or  the  vast,  majority  of  them, 
merely  hearing  or  reading  of  such  things,  pass  by 
on  the  other  side,  with  the  feeling  that  to  pay  at- 
tention would  be  either  credulous  or  sentimental. 

78 


PERFORMING  ANIMALS 

Now,  in  regard  to  credulousness,  note  that  it  is 
hardly  ever  to  the  interest  of  any  one  to  draw 
attention  to  cruelty — certainly  not  to  fabricate 
such  a  charge;  very  much  the  contrary.  And 
in  regard  to  sentiment,  there  seems  to  be  a  slight 
confusion  as  to  the  meaning  of  that  word.  A 
man  only  moved  by  cruelty  seen  with  his  own 
eyes  is  no  whit  less  sentimental  than  the  man 
who  takes  fire  at  the  mere  recital  of  it;  he  is  only 
more  deficient  in  understanding,  more  cautious 
in  judgment,  or  more  sluggish  in  blood.  Just  as 
sentimental,  but  less  sensitive.  The  longer  I 
live,  the  more  I  become  convinced  that  people 
only  use  that  favourite  reproach — sentimental — 
to  stigmatise  sympathy  with  sufferings  that  they 
themselves  have  been  unwilling  or  unable  to  real- 
ise. The  moment  they  do  realise,  they  become 
just  as  "sentimental,"  just  as  moved  by  pity  and 
anger — for  that  is  what  sentimental  means — as 
those  at  whom  they  sneer. 

Ah !  but — says  the  public — even  if  there  be  suf- 
fering for  animals,  the  pleasure  that  their  freaks 
or  their  fur  or  their  feathers  give  us  is  greater 
than  this  suffering;  we  are  entitled  to  weigh  the 
one  against  the  other.  Yet,  few  of  that  same 
public  would  dream  of  saying  this  if,  with  their 
own  eyes,  they  saw  the  tortures;  for  them  the 
pleasure  they  talk  of  would  have  vanished  in  the 

79 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

memory  of  those  quivering  visions.  Out  of  sheer 
sluggishness  of  imagination,  out  of  mere  laziness 
of  mind,  then,  is  made  that  rather  pitiable  plea — 
our  pleasure  is  greater  than  their  suffering. 

Yes!  Nearly  all  the  suffering  we  inflict, 
whether  on  human  beings  or  on  animals,  comes 
from  our  not  thinking.  Many  people  gravely  dis- 
trust that  practice.  For  all  that,  I  venture  to 
suggest  that  a  little  more  thought  will  do  no 
harm  to  any  of  us. 

We  pass  this  way  but  once,  but  once  tread  this 
world,  and  live  in  communion  with  these  furred 
and  feathered  things,  many  of  them  beautiful, 
in  a  thousand  ways  so  like  ourselves,  often 
friendly  if  we  would  let  them  be,  and  yet  who, 
one  and  all,  are  so  simple  and  helpless  in  the  face 
of  our  force  and  ingenuity.  Shall  we,  as  we  van- 
ish, say:  "I  have  lived  my  life  as  a  true  lord  of 
creation,  taking  toll  from  the  captivities  and  suf- 
ferings of  every  creature  that  had  not  my  strength 
and  cunning!"  Or  shall  we  pass  out  with  the 
thought:  'I  wish  I  had  not  given  needless  pain  to 
any  living  thing!' 


80 


TREATMENT   OF  ANIMALS 


VIVISECTION  OF  DOGS 

(Letters  to  The  Times,  1913) 

(i) 

Whatever  one's  beliefs  concerning  the  whole 
question  of  experiments  on  the  living  body,  the 
vivisection  of  dogs  is  a  strange  anomaly.  Even 
if  it  be  granted  that  the  dog,  by  reason  of  its  in- 
telligence and  nervous  organisation,  is  more  fitted 
than  other  animals  for  certain  vivisectional  ex- 
periments (though  I  believe  this  is  disputed), 
there  are  yet  basic  considerations  which  make 
such  treatment  of  the  dog  a  scandalous  betrayal. 
Man,  no  doubt,  first  bound  or  bred  the  dog  to  his 
service  and  companionship  for  purely  utilitarian 
reasons;  but  we  of  to-day,  by  immemorial  tradi- 
tion and  a  sentiment  that  has  become  almost  as 
inherent  in  us  as  the  sentiment  toward  children, 
give  him  a  place  in  our  lives  utterly  different 
from  that  which  we  accord  to  any  other  animal 
(not  even  excepting  cats),  a  place  that  he  has  won 
for  himself  throughout  the  ages,  and  that  he  ever 
increasingly  deserves.  He  is  by  far  the  nearest 
thing  to  man  on  the  face  of  the  earth,  the  one  link 
that  we  have  spiritually  with  the  animal  creation ; 

81 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

the  one  dumb  creature  into  whose  eyes  we  can 
look  and  tell  pretty  well  for  certain  what  emotion, 
even  what  thought,  is  at  work  within;  the  one 
dumb  creature  which — not  as  a  rare  exception, 
but  almost  always — steadily  feels  the  sentiments 
of  love  and  trust.  This  special  nature  of  the  dog 
is  our  own  handiwork,  a  thing  instilled  into  him 
through  thousands  of  years  of  intimacy,  care,  and 
mutual  service,  deliberately  and  ever  more  care- 
fully fostered;  extraordinarily  precious  even  to 
those  of  us  who  profess  to  be  without  sentiment. 
It  is  one  of  the  prime  factors  of  our  daily  lives  in 
all  classes  of  society — this  mute  partnership  with 
dogs;  and — we  are  still  vivisecting  them ! 

I  am  told  that  pro-vivisectionists  are  fighting 
tooth  and  nail  against  the  bill  (now  in  Committee 
stage  in  the  House  of  Commons)  which  has  for 
object  the  exemption  of  dogs  from  all  vivisec- 
tional  and  inoculative  experiments.  If  it  indeed 
be  so,  I  ask  them:  "Would  you,  any  one  of  you, 
give  your  own  dog  up  to  the  vivisector's  knife,  or 
respect  a  man  who  gave  or  sold  you  his  dog  for 
your  experiments?"  I  take  it  they  would  reply: 
"We  would  not  give  our  own  dogs.  We  should 
think  poorly  of  the  man  who  sold  or  gave  us  his 
dog.  The  dogs  we  use  are  homeless,  masterless 
dogs."  And  in  turn  I  would  answer:  "There  are 
no  dogs  born  in  this  country  without  home  or 

82 


VIVISECTION  OF  DOGS 

master.  The  dogs  you  use  are  those  who  have 
already  fallen  on  cruelty  or  misfortune,  whom  as 
decent  men  you  pity  or  should  pity;  these  are 
the  dogs,  the  lost  dogs,  that  you  take  for  your  ex- 
periments, to  make  their  ends  more  wretched  than 
their  lives  have  been !'' 

If  this  be  sentiment,  it  is  not  mere  cultured 
sentiment,  but  based  on  a  very  real  and  simple 
sense  of -what  is  decent.  Miners,  farmers,  shep- 
herds, little  shopmen,  gamekeepers,  and  humble 
men  of  all  sorts,  who  own  dogs,  have  precisely 
the  same  feeling — that  the  dog  is  essentially  the 
friend  of  man,  deserving  loyal  treatment.  We 
all  have  this  feeling;  yet,  when  for  our  alleged 
benefit  we  want  to  violate  it,  we  can  still  say: 
"Oh!  it  does  not  matter;  this  dog  is  already 
down !"  In  a  word,  what  we  would  not  do  with 
our  own  dogs  we  have  no  right  to  do  with  dogs 
that  have  not  had  the  luck  to  be  ours.  It  is  not 
so  much  a  question  of  love  of  dogs  as  of  decency 
and  good  faith  in  men. 

I  do  not  wish  to  enter  here  into  the  general 
question  of  vivisection,  but  I  do  plead  that, 
whether  we  believe  in  vivisection  or  not,  we  are 
bound,  in  common  honour,  to  make  a  clean  and 
whole-hearted  exception  of  the  one  creature  whom 
we  have  trained  to  really  trust  and  love  us.  By 
not  doing  so  we  injure  the  human  spirit. 

83 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

(2) 

I  answer  the  rejoinders  to  my  plea  for  the  ex- 
emption of  dogs  from  vivisection  in  no  spirit  of 
hostility  to  science,  with  all  respect  for  investi- 
gators who  are  inspired  by  the  desire  to  lessen 
the  sum  of  suffering  in  the  world,  and  not  at  all 
assuming  that  those  who  support  the  vivisection 
of  dogs  must  needs  be  without  fondness  for  their 
companionship. 

I  suggest  that  there  is  a  distinction  between 
being  "vivisected"  (and  in  that  word  I  include 
inoculations)  to  save  your  own  life  or  lessen  your 
own  suffering,  and  being  vivisected  by  your  neigh- 
bours to  save  their  lives  or  lessen  their  sufferings. 
The  distinction  indeed  might  almost  be  called 
profound.  And  if  my  contention  that  the  dog 
has  earned  for  himself  a  consideration  from  man, 
I  do  not  say  equal,  but  analogous  to  that  which 
man  has  for  his  own  species  be  admitted,  it  would 
follow  that  if  we  approve  of  cutting  up  and  inocu- 
lating the  dog,  not  for  his  individual  benefit,  but 
for  our  benefit  and  for  that  of  his  fellow  dogs,  we 
must  also  approve  of  cutting  up  and  inoculating 
our  children  and  ourselves,  not  for  our  individual 
benefit,  but  for  the  benefit  of  the  race,  having 
regard  to  the  immeasurably  more  direct  results 
which  science  would  secure  from  vivisections  and 

84 


VIVISECTION   OF   DOGS 

inoculations  on  the  human  body.  It  is  possible, 
indeed,  that  some  vivisectors  are  prepared,  in  the 
interests  of  the  scientific  treatment  of  disease,  to 
say:  "I  am  so  entirely,  so  definitely  convinced 
of  the  benefits  to  the  human  race  of  these  experi- 
ments that  I  am  ready  to  give  not  only  my  dog, 
but  my  child,  my  wife,  myself  if  necessary,  for 
the  good  of  mankind."  But  I  personally — and  I 
venture  to  think  there  may  be  others  of  the  same 
opinion — am  not  prepared  to  go  so  far.  And  I 
plead  simply  that  if  we  are  not  ready  to  make 
martyrs  of  our  children  and  heroes  of  ourselves, 
the  time  has  come  when  we  are  no  longer  entitled 
to  make  martyrs  of  dogs.  The  issue  raised,  in 
fact,  is  whether  or  no  the  dog  has  reached  a  posi- 
tion where  it  becomes  unethical  to  treat  him  as 
if  he  had  not  reached  that  position. 

There  are  innumerable  people  in  all  ranks  of 
our  civilised  world  who  would  echo  the  words  I 
heard  last  night:  "If  I  were  condemned  to  spend 
twenty-four  hours  alone  with  a  single  creature,  I 
would  choose  to  spend  them  with  my  dog." 
Granting  that  most  people  would  make  two  or 
three  human  exceptions,  the  saying  expresses  a 
true  feeling.  There  is  a  quiet  comfort  in  the 
companionship  of  a  dog,  with  its  ever-ready, 
touching  humility,  which  human  companionship, 
save  of  the  nearest,  does  not  bring;  and  I  assert 

85 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

that  this  boon  to  mankind — of  dog's  companion- 
ship— does  raise  the  dog  onto  the  peculiar  plane 
of  ethical  consideration  which  we  apply  to  our- 
selves. There  is  no  need  to  adduce  stories  of  how 
"Dash"  or  "Don"  saved  the  gardener's  baby 
from  setting  herself  on  fire,  or  swam  to  the  rescue 
of  little  Thomas  who  was  drowning;  we  have  only 
to  watch  dogs  in  house  or  street.  I  noted  three 
yesterday  afternoon,  the  only  three  in  the  street 
at  the  moment.  The  first,  a  fox-terrier,  was  trot- 
ting along  quite  by  himself  with  an  air  of  mastery 
of  London  that  could  not  have  been  excelled  by 
the  best  "man  of  the  world"  amongst  us.  No 
other  sort  of  animal  could  have  even  begun  to 
walk  the  streets  of  man  with  that  quiet,  busy 
confidence.  The  second,  a  spaniel,  was  looking 
up  at  his  mistress — it  is  not  often  that  children 
and  their  mothers  have  the  confidence  in  each 
other  that  those  two  certainly  had.  The  third,  a 
retriever,  was  towing  an  infirm  old  gentleman. 

Yes,  the  position  of  the  dog  is  unique.  We 
have  made  him  intelligent;  and  it  is  sinister 
ethics  to  choose  him  for  vivisections  or  inocula- 
tions because  of  the  very  intelligence  we  have  im- 
planted. We  have  taught  him  faith  and  love, 
and  I  feel  are  ourselves  bound  by  what  we  have 
taught  him.  Into  other  animals  we  have  not  in- 
stilled these  qualities;  we  are,  therefore,  not  bound 

86 


VIVISECTION   OF   DOGS 

to  the  same  special  faith  with  them  that  we  owe 
to  the  dog. 

My  plea  being  simply  that  men  cannot  make 
friends  of  dogs  and  then  treat  them  as  if  that  re- 
lationship did  not  exist,  I  am  not  concerned  to 
discuss  the  disputed  question  of  whether  or  not 
special  benefit  does  arise  from  experiments  on 
dogs;  but  in  regard  to  suffering  in  such  experi- 
ments, take  the  Home  Office  returns  for  1911. 
"Dogs  and  cats  experimented  upon  without  anaes- 
thetics, 452.  Dogs  and  cats  allowed  to  recover 
after  serious  operations,  393,"  and  the  words  of 
the  report  of  the  Royal  Commission  on  Vivisec- 
tion: "It  is  clear  that,  even  if  the  initial  procedure 
may  be  regarded  as  trivial,  the  subsequent  re- 
sults of  this  procedure  must,  in  some  cases  at  any 
rate,  be  productive  of  great  pain  and  much  suf- 
fering." 

After  all,  we  have  not  only  bodies  but  spirits, 
and  when  our  minds  have  once  become  alive  to 
ethical  doubt  on  a  question  such  as  this — (there 
are  870,000  signatures  to  a  petition  for  the  total 
exemption  of  dogs  from  vivisection) — when  we 
are  no  longer  sure  that  we  have  the  right  so  to 
treat  our  dog  comrades,  there  has  fallen  a  shadow 
on  the  human  conscience  that  will  surely  grow, 
until,  by  adjustment  of  our  actions  to  our  ethical 
sense,  it  has  been  remedied. 

87 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

VI 

HORSES  IN  MINES 

(1) 

(A  Letter  to  The  Times,  1910)1 

The  experience  which  has  just  befallen  the 
three  hundred  horses  and  ponies  imprisoned  un- 
derground during  the  strike  riots  at  Clydach  Vale 
spurs  me  to  an  appeal  to  all  owners  of  collieries 
and  mines  to  abandon,  so  far  as  possible,  the  use 
of  horses  and  ponies  below  ground. 

The  question  of  the  treatment  of  pit  ponies  has 
of  late  attracted  much  attention,  and  is  under  ex- 
amination by  the  Royal  Commission  on  Mines. 
Into  discussion  of  the  truth  of  particular  stories 
of  cruelty  I  do  not  intend  to  enter.  I  have  no 
first-hand  knowledge,  and,  short  of  becoming  a 
pit-pony  driver  or  mine-inspector,  no  real  chance 
of  obtaining  any.  I  wish  simply  to  draw  the  at- 
tention of  owners  of  collieries  and  mines  to  cer- 
tain considerations  that  need  not  in  the  least 
hurt  a  belief  in  their  own  humanity  or  that  of 
their  employees. 

Apart  from  the  aberrations  of  human  brutes, 
who   flourish  as  well   above  ground   as  below, 

88 


HORSES   IN   MINES 

cruelty  in  these  days  is  not  deliberate,  but  requires 
for  its  existence  three  primary  fostering  condi- 
tions: the  first,  an  overdriven  or  irritated  state 
of  nerves;  the  second,  secrecy;  the  third,  a  help- 
less object. 

The  first  of  these  conditions  is  always  more  or 
less  present  in  mine  work,  not  only  because  of 
the  atmosphere  and  unnatural  environment,  but 
also  because  a  certain  amount  of  work  has  to  be 
got  through  under  difficulties  in  a  certain  amount 
of  time.  The  second  of  these  conditions  is  always 
present  to  a  greater  extent  than  it  is  almost  any- 
where above  ground.  The  third  of  these  condi- 
tions is  obviously  present.  In  mines  and  collier- 
ies, therefore,  we  have  human  nature,  neither 
better  nor  worse  underground  than  it  is  above, 
working  continually  under  circumstances  in  which 
the  three  primary  fostering  conditions  of  cruelty 
are  present.  We  thus  have  a  prima  facie  case 
for  supposing — all  other  things  being  equal — that 
there  must  be  more  cruelty  in  the  treatment  of 
animals  underground  than  on  the  surface.  If 
there  were  not,  it  would  mean  that  miners  were 
not  only  as  humane  as  the  rest  of  mankind,  which 
is  freely  admitted,  but  much  more  humane,  which 
is  not  likely.  The  existence  of  these  three  pri- 
mary fostering  conditions  in  perpetual  combina- 
tion, in  fact,  renders  the  conclusion,  apart  from 

89 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

all  actual  evidence,  as  inevitable  as  a  chemical 
equation. 

But  far  beyond  all  this  we  have  the  fact  that 
herbivorous  animals,  accustomed  to  daylight  and 
fresh  air,  are  kept  from  the  age  of  four  to  the  age 
at  which  they  are  about  to  die,  in  a  place  where 
no  green  thing  of  any  sort  can  grow,  where  the 
air  is  strange  and  dark,  and  there  is  neither  rain 
nor  sunshine.  And,  further,  we  have  those  occa- 
sional catastrophes,  such  as  that  which  so  nearly 
did  to  death  the  unfortunate  three  hundred  horses 
in  Clydach  Vale. 

One  assumes  as  a  matter  of  course  that  mine- 
owners  are  as  personally  humane  in  their  treat- 
ment of  animals  as  the  rest  of  us;  that  they  do 
not  lack  desire  to  see  that  their  ponies  and  horses 
underground  are  treated  well;  that  they  would 
recoil  from  the  sight  of  neglectful  treatment  of 
four-legged  creatures  that  came  under  their  own 
eyes.  I  merely  appeal  to  them  to  consider,  apart 
from  the  breezes  and  contradictions  of  a  vexed 
question,  the  plain  common  sense  of  the  matter. 
There  may  be  thousands  of  well-fed,  well-treated, 
well-kept  ponies  employed  in  pits;  but  with  hu- 
man nature  and  animal  nature  fixed  quantities, 
and  the  conditions  what  they  are,  must  there  not 
inevitably  be  far  more  suffering,  on  the  whole,  in 
their  lives  underground  than  in  the  lives  of  ani- 

90 


HORSES  IN   MINES 

mals  employed  on  the  surface  ?    The  heart  of  the 
matter  lies  in  the  unnatural  conditions. 

Small  engines  are  used  with  success  both  here 
and  abroad  for  some  kinds  of  mine  traction.  For 
other  kinds  of  mine  traction  animals  may  always 
have  to  be  employed — though  that  is  a  hard  say- 
ing, seeing  what  human  ingenuity  can  accom- 
plish. But  surely  a  great  deal  more  of  the  trac- 
tion in  English  collieries  and  mines  could  be  done 
by  engines,  with  safety  and  economy.  Is  it  too 
much  to  beg  kindly  men  that  they  should  do  their 
utmost  to  substitute,  so  far  as  possible,  this  me- 
chanical traction  for  the  labour  of  those  four- 
legged  creatures  whose  lives  underground  must, 
even  in  the  best  circumstances,  be  unnatural  and 
sad? 

It  is  no  more  desirable  for  human  beings  than 
for  animals  to  have  to  spend  their  lives  under- 
ground; and  what  men  can  put  up  with,  animals 
certainly  can.  But  men  have  at  all  events  some 
choice  in  the  matter,  and  they  do  spend  half  the 
week  at  least,  on  the  surface. 

The  unnatural  conditions  of  our  own  lives  do 
not  justify  us  in  employing  animals  under  un- 
natural conditions  where  we  can  avoid  it.  I  take 
it  we  all  wish  to  see  suffering  reduced  to  its  irre- 
ducible minimum. 


91 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

(2) 

(A  Letter  to  The  Times,  1913) 

The  inspectors  appointed  to  carry  out  the  pro- 
visions of  the  Coal  Mines  (Regulation)  Act  in  re- 
gard to  pit  ponies  are  to  be  six  in  number — one 
for  each  division  in  the  United  Kingdom,  which 
contains  3,325  coal-mines. 

I  understand  that  this  provision  is  based  on 
the  grounds  that  the  ordinary  mine-inspectors,  of 
whom  there  are  many,  will  not  be  thereby  ab- 
solved from  that  part  of  their  duties;  and  that 
the  multiplication  of  officials  is  an  expensive  and 
undesirable  thing. 

I  wish  to  point  out  that  the  ordinary  inspectors 
will,  almost  to  a  man,  feel  that  the  appointment 
of  special  inspectors  in  regard  to  a  particular 
branch  of  their  duties,  relieves  them  from  what 
is  a  very  thankless  job.  It  is  only  human  nature 
not  to  want  to  spy  on  one's  own  kind  if  one  is 
not  absolutely  obliged. 

Under  the  ordinary  system  of  inspection,  the 
figures  for  the  year  1907  give  only  twenty-two 
prosecutions  for  cruelty  to  animals  underground 
in  the  United  Kingdom.  Taking  the  boys  and 
men  employed  in  mines  as  average  kindly  folk, 
neither  more  nor  less  given  to  cruelty  than  the 
rest  of  us,  this  number  of  prosecutions  would 

92 


HORSES  IN  MINES 

work  out,  relatively  to  opportunity,  at  extraor- 
dinarily below  the  number  of  prosecutions  above 
ground.  And  we  can  only  deduce  from  this  the 
fact  that  the  conditions  in  mines  are  such  that 
acts  which  above  ground  would  lead  to  prosecu- 
tion pass  unnoticed  underground. 

I  do  beg  the  home  secretary  to  reconsider  this 
aspect  of  the  question — that  is  to  say,  the  cer- 
tainty that  the  appointment  of  special  inspectors 
of  animals  will  in  practice  bring  a  feeling  of  ab- 
solution to  the  ordinary  inspector,  from  the  duty 
of  reporting  on  animals. 

For,  if  this  is  admitted,  the  number  of  six 
special  inspectors  is  shown  to  be  ludicrous.  It 
means  about  two  mines  a  day  all  the  year  round 
for  each  inspector.  Those  of  us  who  have  been 
down  coal-mines  know  how  perfunctoiy  such  in- 
spection must  be. 

It  is  certainly  undesirable  to  multiply  officials 
without  due  cause;  but  there  really  is  a  point  of 
common  sense  and  compromise  which  will  hardly 
be  reached  even  if  twelve  instead  of  six  special 
inspectors  are  appointed. 

The  new  regulations  are  admirably  wide,  and 
directed  to  bettering  the  lives  of  these  unfortunate 
little  beasts;  for,  putting  everything  at  the  best, 
they  remain  unfortunate  compared  with  their 
brethren   above  ground.     But  these  regulations 

93 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

will  want  a  lot  of  looking  after,  especially  at  first, 
if  they  are  not  to  be  a  dead  letter. 

The  great  bulk  of  our  material  comfort  comes 
out  of  our  coal-mines;  surely  we  can  spare  a  little 
more  of  it  than  this,  to  guarantee  as  far  as  we 
can  the  welfare  of  the  ponies. 


VII 
THE  DOCKING  OF  HORSES*  TAILS 

(Foreword  to  a  pamphlet,  1913) 

In  the  year  A.  D.  785  the  Council  of  Celchyth 
— it  seems — thus  addressed  our  ancestors: 

From  the  influence  of  a  vile  and  unbecoming  custom 
you  deform  and  mutilate  your  horses.  .  .  .  You  cut  off 
their  tails;  and  when  you  enjoy  them  uninjured  and  per- 
fect, you  choose  rather  to  maim  and  blemish  them,  so  as 
to  make  them  odious  and  disgustful  objects  to  all  who 
see  them.  .  .  .    This  you  are  admonished  to  renounce. 

Thus  the  Council  of  Celchyth  in  A.  D.  785. 
The  Council  of  Westminster  in  A.  D.  1913  has 
not  yet  been  moved  to  admonish  us,  in  the  only 
way  it  can — by  law — to  renounce  this  "vile  and 
unbecoming  custom"  of  docking  the  tails  of 
horses. 

"Vile  and  unbecoming!"  If  it  be  not,  still 
vile  to  mutilate  a  defenceless  beast  (sometimes 

94 


"DOCKING" 

at  cost  of  acute  suffering)  for  the  sake  of  a  fash- 
ion, and  of  a  market  value  dictated  by  that  fash- 
ion; if  it  be  not,  still  vile  to  deprive  a  very  sen- 
sitive animal  of  its  natural  protection  against 
stinging  insects,  and  against  the  exposure  of  what 
ought  to  be  protected — by  what  word  shall  we 
describe  this  practice  ?  And  if  it  be  not,  still,  un- 
becoming to  destroy  the  untouched  sweep  and 
grace  of  one  of  the  most  beautiful  of  creatures, 
and  turn  what  is  natural  and  decent  into  the  in- 
decently grotesque — what  significance  has  all  our 
talk  of  beauty,  and  all  our  so-called  taste?  The 
idea  that  a  natural  tail  causes  carriage  accidents 
is  an  exploded  myth.  The  plea  that  a  docked 
tail  saves  trouble  in  cleaning  is  readily  met,  if  need 
be,  by  shortening  the  hair  of  the  tail  as  far  as  the 
end  of  the  "dock"  or  bone  of  the  tail,  without 
touching  the  bone  itself.  The  tail  will  then  be 
as  short  as  even  a  stable-hand  can  reasonably  de- 
sire, the  horse  not  mutilated,  and  the  hair  ready 
to  grow  again. 

In  certain  exceptional  circumstances  it  may  be 
necessary  to  dock  a  horse.  But,  to  make  a  fash- 
ion of  it !  .  .  . 

Ye  gods !  What  a  sense  of  beauty  and  of  de- 
cency v/e  must  have,  to  approve  the  miserable 
stumps  left  on  our  horses  by  this  "disgustful" 
practice !    If  we  must  indulge  in  mutilation  for 

95 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

the  sake  of  "beauty,"  let  us  perform  on  our- 
selves; tattoo  our  faces,  perforate  our  lips,  flat- 
ten our  craniums,  with  other  devices  suitable  to 
savages.  But  let  us  leave  the  horse  alone,  who 
in  his  unmutilated  state  is  far  less  in  need  of 
"decoration"  than  we. 

There  are  some  customs  that  seem  to  spell 
despair.  How  far,  indeed,  are  we  removed  from 
savages,  when  we  can  blindly  follow  a  custom  so 
thoughtless  and  tormenting,  so  stupid  and  ugly? 


VIII 
AIGRETTES 

(A  Note  in  Pearson's  Magazine,  1913) 

Am  I  in  favour  of  legislation  prohibiting  the 
importation  of  plumage  into  Great  Britain? 

I  cannot  conceive  of  any  one,  man  or  woman, 
with  imagination  and  knowledge  of  the  facts, 
who  would  not  be  in  favour  of  such  legislation. 
That  Englishwomen — English  ladies — after  years 
of  revelation  concerning  this  dismal  matter, 
should  continue  to  support  by  their  demands  the 
killing  of  myriads  of  beautiful  birds  at  breeding 
season,  is  the  most  discouraging  instance  I  know 
of  the  wilful  blindness  of  the  human  creature 
whose  vanity  is  threatened. 

96 


AIGRETTES 

American  law  has  banned  the  aigrette;  why- 
does  English  law  lag  behind? 

Not  one  of  our  legislators  would  torture  a  bird, 
yet,  because  a  few  thousand  miles  separate  them 
from  the  scenes  of  this  butchery,  they  seem  either 
unable  to  imagine  what  it  means  or  to  find  time 
to  put  a  stop  to  it.  I  commend  to  one  and  all  the 
report  of  the  House  of  Lords  Committee,  who 
examined  the  whole  question  some  years  ago,  and 
said: 

"The  evidence  has  been  such  as  to  show  con- 
clusively in  the  opinion  of  the  Committee,  that 
not  only  are  birds  of  many  species  slaughtered 
recklessly,  but  also  that  the  methods  employed 
for  slaughter  are  such  as  in  many  cases,  and  es- 
pecially in  that  of  egrets,  to  involve  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  young  birds  and  eggs." 

"Birds  are,  as  a  rule,  in  their  finest  plumage 
at  the  time  of  nesting,  and  have  been  shown  to 
be  especially  the  prey  of  hunters  at  that  season." 

Such  Committees  should  not  be  appointed,  if 
their  conclusions  are  not  to  be  paid  attention  to. 


97 


CONCERNING  LAWS 


ON  PROCEDURE  IN  PARLIAMENT 

(A  Letter  to  The  Times,  1914) 

I  am  moved  to  speak  out  what,  I  am  sure, 
many  are  feeling.  We  are  a  so-called  civilised 
country;  we  have  a  so-called  Christian  religion; 
we  profess  humanity.  We  have  an  elected  Par- 
liament, to  each  member  of  which  we  pay  ,£400 
a  year;  so  that  we  have  at  least  some  right  to 
say:  "Please  do  our  business,  and  that  quickly !" 

And  yet  we  sit  and  suffer  such  barbarities  and 
mean  cruelties  to  go  on  among  us,  as  must  dry 
the  heart  of  God.  I  cite  at  random  a  few  only 
of  the  abhorrent  things  done  daily,  daily  left  un- 
done; done  and  left  undone  without  a  shadow  of 
a  doubt,  against  the  conscience  and  general  will 
of  the  community: 

(1)  Sweating  of  women  workers. 

(2)  Insufficient  feeding  of  children. 

(3)  Employment  of  boys  on  work  that  to  all 
intents  ruins  their  chances  in  after-life. 

(4)  Foul  housing  of  those  who  have  as  much 
right  as  you  and  I  to  the  first  decencies  of  life. 

98 


CONCERNING  LAWS 

(5)  Consignment  of  paupers  (that  is,  those 
without  money  or  friends)  to  lunatic  asylums  on 
the  certificate  of  one  doctor — the  certificate  of 
two  doctors  being  essential  in  the  case  of  a  person 
who  has  money  or  friends. 

(6)  Export  of  horses  worn  out  in  work.  Export 
that,  for  a  few  pieces  of  blood-money  delivers  up 
old  and  faithful  servants  to  wretchedness. 

(7)  Mutilation  of  horses  by  docking,  so  that 
they  suffer,  offend  the  eye,  and  are  defenceless 
against  the  attacks  of  flies. 

(8)  Caging  of  wild  things,  especially  wild  song- 
birds, by  those  who  themselves  think  liberty  the 
breath  of  life. 

(9)  Slaughter  for  food  of  millions  of  creatures 
every  year  by  methods  that  can  easily  be  im- 
proved. 

(10)  Importation  of  the  plumes  of  ruthlessly 
slain  wild  birds,  mothers  with  young  in  the  nest, 
to  decorate  our  women. 

Such  as  these — shameful  barbarities  done  to 
helpless  creatures — we  suffer  among  us  year  after 
year.  They  are  admitted  to  be  anathema;  in 
favour  of  their  abolition  there  would  be  found 
at  any  moment  a  round  majority  of  unfettered 
Parliamentary  and  general  opinion.  One  and  all 
they  are  removable,  and  many  of  them  by  small 
expenditure  of  Parliamentary  time,  public  money, 

99 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

and  expert  care.  It  is  pitiable  that,  for  mere 
want  of  Parliamentary  time,  we  cannot  get  mani- 
fest sores  such  as  these  treated  and  banished  once 
for  all  from  the  nation's  body;  pitiable  that  due 
machinery  cannot  be  devised  to  deal  with  these 
and  other  barbarities  to  man  and  beast,  con- 
cerning which,  in  the  main,  no  real  controversy 
exists;  scandalous  that  their  removal  should  be 
left  to  the  mercy  of  the  ballot,  to  private  mem- 
bers' bills — liable  to  be  obstructed;  or  to  the 
hampered  and  inadequate  efforts  of  societies  un- 
supported by  legislation. 

Rome,  I  know,  was  not  built  in  a  day.  Parlia- 
ment works  hard,  has  worked  harder  during  these 
last  years  than  ever  perhaps  before;  all  honour 
to  it  for  that !  It  is  an  august  assembly  of  which 
I  wish  to  speak  with  all  respect.  But  it  works 
without  sense  of  proportion,  or  sense  of  humour. 
Over  and  over  again  it  turns  things  already 
talked  into  their  graves;  over  and  over  again 
listens  to  the  same  partisan  bickerings,  to  argu- 
ments which  everybody  knows  by  heart.  And 
all  the  time  the  fires  of  live  misery  that  could, 
most  of  them,  so  easily  be  put  out,  are  raging, 
and  the  reek  thereof  is  going  up. 

It  is  I,  of  course,  who  will  be  mocked  at  for 
lack  of  the  senses  of  proportion  and  humour. 
But  if  the  tale  of  hours  spent  on  certain  party 

100 


CONCERNING  LAWS 

measures  be  set  against  the  tale  of  hours  not  yet 
spent  on  measures  of  humanity,  the  mockers  will 
yet  be  mocked. 

I  am  not  one  of  those  who  believe  we  can  do 
without  party;  but  I  do  see  and  I  do  say  that 
party  business  absorbs  far  too  much  of  the  time 
that  our  common  humanity  demands  for  the  re- 
dress of  crying  shames.  And  if  laymen  see  this 
with  grief  and  anger,  how  much  more  poignant 
must  be  the  feeling  of  members  of  Parliament 
themselves,  to  whom  alone  remedy  has  been  in- 
trusted ! 

II 

THE  NATURE  OF  LAWS 

(Written  in  1913) 

Among  comments  on  the  foregoing  letter,  there 
occurred  again  and  again  criticisms  conveniently 
summed  up  in  a  sentence  from  an  American 
journal:  "It  is  not  the  part  of  Government  to 
make  men  moral/' 

One  who  is  generally  blamed  for  offering  no 
practical  remedies  for  the  hard  cases  he  provides 
is  not  quite  so  foolish  as  to  think  men  are  to  be 
made  into  angels  by  Law.  Cut-and-dried  for- 
mulas are  hardly  his  little  gods;  and  he  knows 
well  that  far  more  important  than  change  and  re- 

101 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

form  of  laws  and  systems  is  improvement  in  the 
spirit  of  the  men  who  administer  them.  For  all 
that,  it  is  fatal  to  think  that  public  feeling  can  be 
divorced  from  Law  in  the  social  organism.  In 
effect  these  critics  say: 

'It  is  impossible  to  diminish  cruelty  and  injus- 
tice, by  Law;  any  attempt  to  do  so  will  only 
divert  the  cruelty  or  injustice  banned,  to  another 
form  of  expression.'  Very  well !  It  is  therefore 
demonstrably  needless  and  even  ridiculous  to 
prohibit  by  Law — murder,  rape,  and  the  delib- 
erate torture  of  children.  The  murderer,  the 
ravisher,  and  the  torturer  should  be  allowed  to 
vent  their  cruelty  in  these  forms,  for  fear  that  if 
they  are  not  so  allowed,  they  will  vent  it  in  other 
forms !  That  is  the  reductio  ad  absurdum  im- 
plicit in  all  such  anarchistic  doctrine;  and  how 
far  it  is  really  held  by  those  who  talk  of  the  futility 
of  passing  laws  against  inhumanity  one  must 
leave  to  their  own  consciences.  In  any  case  the 
doctrine  takes  no  account  of  the  real  nature  of 
laws.  In  a  democratic  society,  such  as  ours,  only 
Public  Opinion,  or  I  would  rather  say,  the  true, 
secret  consensus  of  general  thought,  makes  laws 
possible — I  am  speaking  of  laws  against  inhu- 
manity. And  laws,  so  made,  are  but  constant  re- 
minders to  every  one  that  public  opinion  is  against 
such  and  such  a  thing.    Laws  were  made  against 

i02 


CONCERNING  LAWS 

murder  and  rape  because  public  feeling  against 
such  acts  became  so  strong  that,  until  the  laws 
were  made,  normal  individuals  did  not  rest  till 
they  had  torn  to  pieces  persons  who  acted  in  such 
abnormal  ways.  It  was  therefore  considered 
more  convenient  that  certain  recognised  profes- 
sional persons  should  undertake  the  work  of  pun- 
ishment. And  so  on  through  all  the  gamut  of 
laws  down  to  those  against  quite  minor  cruelties, 
which  would  not  perhaps  provoke  individual  re- 
taliation, but  which  nevertheless  would  evoke 
pity  and  anger  from  a  majority  of  those  who  with 
their  own  eyes  saw  them  inflicted.  Admitting  that 
the  state  of  public  feeling  toward  a  particular  form 
of  cruelty  must  always  be  more  or  less  a  matter 
of  discretionary  judgment  for  legislators,  it  is 
yet  quite  wrong  to  suppose  that  laws  must  wait 
until  the  majority  of  individuals  in  a  community 
have  openly  declared  a  feeling  of  which  perhaps, 
never  having  been  tested  personally,  they  are  not 
conscious.  When  one  urges  the  passing  of  laws 
to  prohibit  certain  cruelties,  one  is  only  urging 
that  the  legislature  should  give  concrete  expres- 
sion to  what  it  believes  would  be  the  general 
opinion  of  the  country  if  every  man  and  woman 
therein  could  be  taken  apart — isolated,  as  juries 
are — and  then  actually  put  face  to  face  with  in- 
stances of  these  cruelties,   so  that  they  might 

103 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

judge  them  with  the  fresh  and  genuine  feelings 
of  unfettered  men  and  women.  One  is,  in  fact, 
only  urging  the  recording  of  a  judgment  which 
he  believes  to  have  been  secretly  delivered;  ask- 
ing that  this  secret  judgment  should  be  published 
in  the  form  of  Law  as  a  daily  and  forcible  reminder 
that  some  things  are  'not  done.' 

'Ah!'  would  say  these  critics  who  want  to  see 
no  more  Laws  made  because  men  cannot  be  made 
humane  by  Law,  and  who  certainly  should  logi- 
cally wish  all  our  present  laws  removed  by  Law 
(for  this  criticism  is  radical  and  not  one  of  de- 
gree!)— 'Ah!  but/  they  would  say,  'all  you  have 
done  is  to  make  A.  and  B.  mechanically  avoid, 
for  example,  caging  wild  song-birds,  or  docking 
horses'  tails;  but  the  devil  of  natural  man  is  so 
strong  in  A.  and  B.  that  they  will  instantly  set 
to  work  to  invent  some  other  form  of  torture.' 
This  is  too  cynical.  Many  of  the  cruelties  that 
can  be  prohibited  by  Law — that  is  to  say  those 
for  whose  prohibition  the  true  and  secret  public 
feeling  is  ripe — are  cruelties  that  come  rather 
from  lack  of  thought  than  from  a  natural  sav- 
agery. And  it  is  very  large  order  to  say  that, 
because  you  stop  A.  and  B.  from  'not  thinking' 
in  a  certain  direction,  their  lack  of  thought  must 
result  in  other  cruelties.  True,  the  reason  for 
their  'lack  of  thought'  is  often  that  they  profit  by 

104 


CONCERNING  LAWS 

it;  but  even  so,  it  does  not  follow  that  if  one 
channel  of  thoughtless  and  pain-provoking  profit 
be  cut  off,  they  must  necessarily  seek  another. 
As  a  fact,  many  social  cruelties  (such  as  the 
sweating  of  women,  foul  housing,  and  the  harm- 
ful kind  of  child  labour)  are  but  dubious  sources 
of  profit  in  the  long  run;  and  some  cruelties  prac- 
tised on  animals  (such  as  the  wearing  of  certain 
feathers,  or  the  docking  of  horses'  tails)  are  but 
the  outcome  of  'fashion/ 

To  put  it  another  way:  We  feel  there  are  cer- 
tain things  our  neighbours  must  not  do — we  even 
feel  that  we  ourselves  must  not  do  them;  and 
we  pass  laws  to  put  it  out  of  our  own  reach  to 
yield  to  the  temptation  of  profit  or  temper ! 

Take  a  person  who  is  guiltless  of  thought  or 
temptation  in  the  matter,  and  show  him  first  a 
number  of  wild  song-birds  in  freedom,  and  then 
a  bird-fancier's  shop,  with  the  same  kinds  of  birds 
in  their  tiny  cages,  and  ask  him  whether  or  no 
he  thinks  they  ought  to  be  kept  like  that.  In 
nine  cases  out  of  ten  he  will  say:  "Poor  little 
beggars,  no!" 

If  then  the  legislature  passes  a  law  to  penalise 
such  caging,  this  law  will  be  effective  and  will  in 
time  stop  wild  birds  from  being  caged,  because 
the  secret  feeling  of  the  majority  is  really  against 
such  a  practice. 

105 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

But  pass  a  law  to  penalise  the  moderate  smack- 
ing of  small  naughty  children,  it  will  simply  be 
disregarded,  because  nine  out  of  ten  people  do 
not  see  any  harm  in  either  their  neighbours  or 
themselves  moderately  smacking  their  imps. 

Spirit  and  Body  (that  is,  public  feeling  and  the 
law)  in  the  social  organism  are  as  inextricably 
conjoint  as  the  spirit  and  body  of  a  man — pub- 
lic feeling  needing  its  proper  clothing  of  laws,  as 
our  souls  need  due  clothing  by  our  bodies.  And 
if  men  cannot  be  made  kind  by  law,  they  can  and 
are  by  law  reminded  that  they  must  not,  under 
temptation,  do  what,  in  cool  and  disinterested 
blood,  they  disapprove  of  their  neighbours  doing. 

But  there  is  another  and  perhaps  more  convinc- 
ing answer  to  these  critics.  You  say  it's  no 
good  passing  laws.  If  men  are  prevented  from 
ill-treating  one  object,  they'll  only  ill-treat  an- 
other. So  be  it !  Is  that  any  reason  for  not  try- 
ing to  save  the  victims  of  such  cruelty  as  we  can 
actually  see?  Are  we  in  fact  to  disregard  the  suf- 
ferer because  his  torture  may  break  out  in  a 
fresh  direction?  That  would  be  as  much  as  to 
say  that  a  man  watching  another  making  his 
beasts  go  faster  to  market  by  jabbing  them  with 
a  pitchfork,  must  pass  by  on  the  other  side  and 
do  nothing  to  help  the  creatures,  because,  if  the 
prodder  be  prevented,  he  may  to-morrow  cut  off 

106 


CONCERNING  LAWS 

the  tail  of  his  horse  to  improve  the  poor  brute's 
value.  No !  Where  you  see  cruelty,  stop  it !  On 
that  principle  the  individual  and  the  State  know 
where  they  are;  the  opposite  is  but  that:  "What's 
the  good  of  anyfink — why !  noffink !"  philosophy, 
which,  purged  from  all  need  for  effort,  in  a  world 
of  facts,  is  so  truly  ethereal  and  pleasant  to  hold ! 

Some  of  these  critics,  no  doubt,  would  carry 
the  matter  further.  'We  don't  think  of  the  ob- 
ject,' they  would  say,  'because  the  weak  must  go 
to  the  wall,  cruelty  being  inherent  in  the  strug- 
gle for  existence.'  Well!  The  sort  of  cruelties 
we  have  any  chance  of  legislating  against  are  cer- 
tainly not  necessaiy  to  the  preservation  of  our 
existence;  they  are  luxuries,  excrescences,  or  that 
kind  of  short  cut  which  often  takes  one  round  the 
longer  way.  The  struggle  for  sheer  existence  we 
cannot,  of  course,  annul;  it  goes  on,  and  always 
will.  But  in  this  age,  the  human  being  has  surely 
got  to  say:  'I  am  not  only  thankful  that  I  am 
alive  but  that  all  these  other  creatures  are  alive; 
I  am  not  only  thankful  that  I  am  without  pain 
but  that  none  of  these  others  are  in  pain  either. 
I  wish  the  world  to  be  a  decent  place  for  them  as 
well  as  for  myself ! ' 

And  if  these  critics,  returning  to  their  mutton, 
say:  'Quite  so,  sir,  we  desire  that  as  much  as 
you,  perhaps  more;    we  only  tell  you  that  you 

107 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

can't  make  men  feel  like  that  by  law!'  the  an- 
swer once  more  is:  'Freely  admitted!  But  if 
you  do  not  concrete  and  record  in  laws  such  hu- 
mane feelings  as  you  secretly  and  truly  have,  if 
you  do  not  keep  the  body  of  the  social  organism 
in  time  and  tune  with  its  soul,  you  are  handicap- 
ping the  growth  of  your  humane  feeling  for  want 
of  signboards  against  temptation  to  profit  at  the 
expense  of  others;  and  you  are  passing  by  on 
the  other  side,  instead  of  going  to  the  help  of 
those  you  see  being  ill-treated.' 


Ill 
PASSING 

(From  The  Westminster  Gazette,  1914) 

I  was  standing  on  the  Bridge  before  dawn  of 
the  summer  morning;  heat  mist  down  on  the 
water,  and  the  bright  face  of  Big  Ben  up  there, 
disjoint,  set  as  it  were  in  sky — so  dark  it  was. 

I  had  been  there  some  time,  seeking  what  air 
there  might  be  in  the  town,  staring  vaguely  down 
the  broad  way  of  blackness  between  the  misted 
lights  of  the  river  banks,  thinking  idle  thoughts, 
dreaming  perhaps  a  little,  when  suddenly  I  be- 
came conscious  of  something  on  the  parapet.     It 

108 


CONCERNING  LAWS 

seemed  to  be  perching  there;  a  thin,  gray  shape, 
without  face  or  limbs;  and,  peering  at  it,  I  sidled 
along,  till  I  found  that  I  was  getting  no  nearer ! 
Startled,  I  said: 

"What  is  that?    Who  is  it?" 

Only  a  faint  sigh  answered. 

I  called  again:   "Who  are  you?" 

A  soft  voice  replied: 

"Don't  be  alarmed,  sir;  I  am  the  Plumage 
Bill." 

Its  shape  had  grown  no  clearer;  but  in  sheer 
amazement  I  went  on  speaking  as  though  it  were 
a  being. 

"What  are  you  doing  out  here?  Why  aren't 
you  in  there?" 

And  I  pointed  to  Big  Ben. 

The  voice  answered  again: 

"They  have  no  time  for  me,  sir.  I  am  resting 
a  moment  before  I  pass." 

"But,"  I  said,  "you  'pass'  in  there,  not  out 
here!" 

I  could  have  sworn  I  heard  it  laugh,  much  as  a 
dying  child  will  laugh  if  you  show  it  a  jumping 
toy. 

"Oh!  no,  sir!  It  is  here  we  pass  into  nothing 
and  the  summer  night." 

And,  as  it  spoke,  around  me  came  the  most 
extraordinary  beating  and  vibration  in  the  air, 

109 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

a  kind  of  white-gray  wonder  of  invisible  wings 
wheeling  and  hovering.  The  whole  of  dark  space 
seemed  full  of  millions  of  these  invisible  wings, 
so  that  I  stood  utterly  bewildered,  Then  from 
out  of  that  noiseless  swirl  rose  suddenly  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  tiny  voices  as  of  birds  too  young 
to  fly,  calling,  crying,  calling.  And,  flinging  up 
my  hands,  I  pressed  them  against  the  drums  of 
my  ears  till  I  thought  I  should  break  them  in, 
but  still  I  heard  the  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
shrill  little  voices  crying  and  crying. 

"Hush!"  I  called  out:  "For  heaven's  sake, 
hush!" 

But  on  they  went,  feeble  and  shrill  amid  that 
invisible  swirl  of  winged  mothers  trying  to  reach 
and  feed  them;  then,  just  as  I  thought  I  could 
bear  it  no  longer,  the  mist  on  the  water  curled 
over  and  broke  like  a  wave;  something  sighed 
out:  "Farewell!"  and  the  thin  gray  shape  was 
no  longer  there. 

The  Bridge  stretched  empty;  Big  Ben  glowed 
in  the  sky.  I  drew  a  long  breath  and  turned  to 
look  down  at  the  water.  There,  on  the  parapet, 
was  that  thin  gray  shape  again ! 

"Not  gone?"   I  cried. 

A  voice  answered : 

"Sir,  I  have  only  just  come.  I  am  the  Bill  of 
the  Worn-Out  Horses." 

110 


CONCERNING  LAWS 

"What  I"  I  cried;  "had  they  no  time  even  for 
you?" 

And,  as  I  spoke,  I  heard  the  sound  of  thousands 
of  hoofs,  and  saw,  passing  me  slowly  on  the  dark 
air,  the  gaunt  shapes  of  horses.  From  side  to 
side,  up,  down — horses  dragging  worn  feet,  halt- 
ing, passing — their  heads  lower  than  their  hoofs. 

And  I  cried  out:   "For  Christ's  sake,  pass!" 

The  voice  answered:  "We  pass,  sir.  Fare- 
well!" 

With  a  sound  of  plunging  the  water  rose  black 
through  the  mist  to  the  level  of  the  Bridge,  fell 
again,  and  all  was  once  more  still. 

"I'm  haunted!"  I  thought;  and  crossed  to 
the  other  side.  There,  again,  before  me  on  the 
parapet  was  a  gray  shape  that  said: 

"I  am  the  Bill  of  the  Slaughtered  Beasts." 

And,  on  the  instant,  there  came  at  me  in  the 
air,  as  though  I  were  the  centre  of  a  wheel,  a 
million  spokes  of  beasts,  great  beasts  and  little, 
snorting,  writhing,  quivering,  with  a  sound  of 
the  gurgling  of  blood.  And  in  terror  I  cried: 
"Pass!" 

The  voice  answered: 

"We  pass,  sir.    Farewell!" 

And  the  river  ran  by,  below,  swollen  to  the 
height  of  a  hill — all  red. 

I  began  to  run,  crying  out:   "Enough!" 

Ill 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

But  still  there  on  the  parapet  before  me  was 
the  thin  gray  shape,  and  its  voice  said : 

"I  am  the  Bill  of  the  Caged  Wild  Song-Birds." 

And  from  the  darkness  above  came  the  flutter 
of  myriads  of  tiny  hearts  maddened  with  terror 
and  a  sound  such  as  no  other  man  can  have  heard; 
of  thousands  on  thousands  of  little  wings  strug- 
gling, beating,  struggling  against  cage  wires. 
That  sound  came  slanting  down  to  the  water  like 
a  swallow  dipping,  and  passed — invisible  as  wind. 

On  either  parapet,  before  me,  behind,  were 
many,  many  thin  gray  shapes,  like  rows  of  pen- 
guins. They  sighed  and  waved,  moving  this  way 
and  that,  as  though  saying  farewell,  then  one  by 
one  dived  and  passed  into  the  dark  water  below. 
And  the  whole  air  was  alive  with  the  sobbing  of 
men  and  women,  of  children,  and  the  cries  of  pain 
and  terror  from  beasts  and  birds.  And  just  as  I 
thought  that  I,  too,  would  leap  down  into  the 
water  and  escape,  the  dawn  broke.  .  .  . 

I  rubbed  my  eyes.  Nothing  there,  save  the 
river  running  quiet  and  full,  with  a  gray  sheen  on 
it;  that  bright  clock  joined  once  more  to  earth 
by  its  tower;  and  the  sky  flecked  from  pole  to 
pole  with  tiny  white  clouds.  A  breeze  fanned 
my  face.  Beside  me  on  the  Bridge  a  gentleman 
in  top-hat  and  black  coat  was  stretching  himself 
and  breathing  deeply.     I  turned  to  him. 

112 


CONCERNING  LAWS 

"Did  you  see  them,  sir?" 

"See  what?" 

"The  Bills." 

"What  Bills?" 

"The  Bills  of  Suffering !  There,  on  the  parapet; 
thin  gray  things,  passing  into  nothing  and  the  sum- 
mer night?" 

He  looked  at  me,  and  I  saw  he  thought  I  was 
demented.  Then,  with  a  smile  on  his  pleasant 
red' face,  he  pointed  to  the  Clock  Tower,  and  said: 

"Bills !    I  get  enough  of  them  in  there !" 

"Didn't  you  even  hear  them?" 

He  answered  coldly: 

"My  dear  sir,  I  am  a  matter-of-fact  and  hard- 
worked  man,  with  no  time  to  'see'  things;  I  have 
seen  and  heard  nothing.  I  came  out  here  for  a 
breath  of  air  after  sitting  there  all  night !"  And 
pounding  with  his  clinched  fist  at  the  air,  he 
added : 

"We  have  just  had  a  glorious  scrap  !" 

Understanding  then  that  I  must  have  dreamed, 
I  begged  his  pardon  and  moved  toward  home, 
passing  the  Clock  Tower. 


113 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

IV 

THE  MODERN  STOIC:  AN  ILL-NATURED 

DUOLOGUE 

(From  The  Outlook,  1913) 

"Well,  I  can  only  say  that  to  my  mind  it's  just 
another  appeal  to  false  emotion;  pandering  to 
the  softness  of  our  times.  This  mawkish  human- 
itarianism  is  undermining  our  virility.  I  protest 
against  all  this  agitation  and  rotabout  suffering." 

"Suffering  of  others  is  what  you  mean,  I  be- 
lieve?" 

"How  do  you  know  they  suffer?" 

"Forgive  me,  but  where  there  is  all  the  prima- 
facie  evidence  of  suffering,  it  is  surely  'up'  to  you 
to  prove  its  non-existence.  Now,  if  you  your- 
self were  to  try  these  various  experiences  of  ani- 
mals which  you  tell  us  it  is  mawkish  to  concern 
ourselves  about,  then  when  you  say  they  are 
nothing,  we  shall  perhaps  believe  you." 

"Ah!  Will  you  be  good  enough  to  suggest 
how  I  can  do  that?" 

"Get  yourself  chained  to  your  study  chair — ■ 
as  a  watch-dog  is  to  its  kennel — for  a  year  or  so. 
You  could  then  write  convincingly  on  our  mor- 
bidity for  desiring  to  do  away  with  your  chain 
by  law.     'It  is  nothing/  you  would  say;    'no 

114 


CONCERNING  LAWS 

virile  person — '  Or,  better,  cause  yourself  to  be 
taken  down  a  mine  and  kept  there  all  your  life 
working  goodness  knows  how  many  hours  a  day, 
like  one  of  those  pit  ponies,  to  gush  about  whose 
sufferings  you  told  me  was  effeminate.  The 
papers  would  be  delighted  to  get  a  letter  from 
your  death-bed  saying  that  it  was  all  greatly  ex- 
aggerated." 

"Your  suggestions  don't  excite  me,  so  far." 
"Very  well.  Why  not,  in  the  interests  of 
science,  submit  your  body  to  some  of  the  less  ex- 
acting vivisections,  in  order  that  you  may  rein- 
force from  personal  experience  your  remarks 
about  the  squeamishness  of  cranks,  and  the  effi- 
cacy of  curare.  For,  think  how  much  more  val- 
uable to  us  all  experiments  on  the  human  you 
would  be !  I  won't  go  so  far  as  to  suggest  that 
you  should  be  killed  for  food;  for  even  under  the 
comparatively  slow  present  methods,  which,  in 
contempt  of  morbid  sensibility,  I  suppose  you 
would  uphold,  you  would  not  be  in  a  condition 
(though  you  might  possibly  have  time)  to  write 
a  letter  to  the  paper  saying  that  your  suffering 
was  really  nothing.  No !  I  should  rather  advise 
you  to  have  little  bits  cut  off  your  ears — a  pity 
you  have  not  a  tail ! — but  the  effect  can  well  be 
got  by  having  your  hands  tied  behind  you  on  a 
hot  day  in  a  fly-infested  field.    We  should  then 

115 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

get  from  you  a  definite  pronouncement  that  the 
sufferings  of  being  nicked  and  docked  are  nothing, 
instead  of  the  mere  contemptuous  silence  with 
which  you  at  present  regard  our  mawkish  at- 
tempts to  stop  these  processes.  Oh !  there  are 
lots  of  things  you  could  experience,  so  that  your 
letters  to  the  press  might  acquire  that  convincing 
quality  which  at  present  seems  to  me  rather 
lacking." 

"Quite  finished?  You  forget  a  little,  don't 
you,  that  a  human  being  is  not  an  animal;  so  that 
if  I  followed  your  charming  suggestions  I  should 
still  be  no  nearer  knowing  whether  or  no  animals 
suffer,  as  you  say  they  do." 

"Oh!  there's  no  necessity  for  you  to  restrict 
your  experiences  to  those  which  you  advocate  for 
animals.  I've  noticed  that  you  are  always  com- 
plaining of  the  morbid  twaddle  talked  about  the 
sufferings  of  criminals,  the  unhappily  married, 
and  the  poor.  It  would  very  much  increase  our 
respect  for  your  pronouncements  if  you  would 
cause  yourself  to  be  confined  to  a  space  eight  feet 
by  twelve,  in  your  own  company,  for  twenty-three 
hours  out  of  twenty-four,  for  those  nine  months, 
whose  reduction  not  long  ago  in  the  case  of  con- 
victs, I  remember  you  disapproved  of.  Or  again, 
if  you  would  many  a  hopeless  inebriate,  or  merely 
grow  to  hate  your  wife — a  letter  from  you  to  some 

116 


CONCERNING  LAWS 

well-known  journal  to  say  that  it  was  all  really 
of  no  consequence  would  then  be  of  incalculably 
greater  value  than  it  is  at  present.  Or  dare  I  hope 
that  you  might  be  induced  to  embrace  the  career 
of  making  match-boxes,  or  carding  buttons,  or 
sewing  shirts  or  trousers  for,  say,  twelve  or  fifteen 
hours  a  day,  on  a  wage  of  seven  shillings  or  so  a 
week,  in  order  that  we  might  have  the  benefit  of 
knowing  that  your  strenuous  remarks  about  the 
mawkishness  of  believing  that  the  poor  really 
suffer  were  inspired  by  a  thorough  and  personal 
knowledge  of  the  subject." 

"You're  unfortunate  in  your  choice  of  suffer- 
ings. Those  you  mention  are  all  necessary — 
society  being  what  it  is." 

"Oh!  then  you  admit  that  they  are  suffer- 
ings?" 

"To  an  extent — much  exaggerated." 

"Very  well !  You  have  not  yet,  I  perceive, 
grasped  my  points:  First,  what  gives  you  the  right 
to  say  these  sufferings  are  necessary  to  society, 
and  to  interfere  with  our  attempts  to  reduce  them 
so  far  as  we  can?  Secondly,  what  makes  you  an 
authority  at  all  on  the  nature  and  degree  of  suf- 
fering?" 

"I  refuse  to  answer  your  first  question,  which 
I  consider  insolent.  As  to  the  second,  which  is 
also  insolent,  of  what  use  is  one's  imagination,  if 

117 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

not  to  gauge  the  experiences  of  others  without 
experiencing  them  one's  self?" 

"  My  dear  sir,  imagination  is  not,  believe  me,  a 
mere  capacity  for  failing  to  grasp  what  you  have 
not  yourself  experienced.  It  is  an  active  quality 
and  even  when  stretched  to  the  utmost  is  a  little 
liable  to  fall  short  of  the  poignancy  of  experience. 
Let  me  remind  you  of  Poe's  tale  about  the  man  on 
whom  the  walls  of  a  room  gradually  closed  in. 
That  tale,  I  am  sure,  made  even  you  feel  that  his 
sufferings  might  not  be  nil — though  I  honestly 
believe  it  only  roused  you  because  it  was  so  obvi- 
ously romance.  But  do  you  think  your  imagina- 
tion when  you  read  the  story  really  provided  you 
with  the  intensity  of  the  sensations  of  that  man, 
especially  at  the  moment  when  the  walls  were 
grinding  his  bones?" 

"That  was,  as  you  say,  romance.  But  you 
humanitarians  are  always  magnifying  and  dis- 
torting into  the  dreadful  what  is  very  ordinary 
experience;  your  imaginations  are  your  masters, 
not  your  servants.  What  you  want  is  to  be 
familiarised  with  the  ordinary  sights  of  nature, 
and  the  look  of  blood;  we  shouldn't  then  have  all 
this  namby-pambyism  to  put  up  with." 

"You  recommend  that  we  should  be  familiar- 
ised with  the  sight  of  blood?  Might  I  suggest 
that  no  blood  could  be  so  educative  as  that  of 

118 


CONCERNING  LAWS 

one  who  propounds  the  doctrine:  Suffering  is  nil! 
Let  your  own  blood  flow  for  our  enlightenment. 
Believe  me,  we  shall  pay  a  much  more  rapt  atten- 
tion to  it  than  we  should  to  that  of  any  other 
creature." 

"That,  as  you  well  know,  is  an  absurd  sugges- 
tion." 

"Yes!  Quite.  But  what  I  want  you  to  ap- 
preciate is,  how  tiny  the  difference  between  us  is. 
We  think  that  a  man  should  make  light  of  his 
own  suffering,  but  make  light  the  suffering  of 
others.  Now,  transposing  that  first  'of  would 
make  our  philosophy  identical  with  yours." 

"And  how  do  you  know  that  I  have  not  suffer- 
ings, made  light  of — hidden  from  every  one?" 

"Have  you?  We  have,  you  see,  no  means  of 
knowing;  and  you  must  prove  it  if  you  wish  for 
the  luxury  of  having  attention  paid  to  you  when 
you  make  light  of  the  suffering  of  others.  But 
if  indeed  you  have,  are  you  not  a  most  unhappy 
person  in  that  you  do  not  let  a  fellow-feeling  make 
you  wondrous  kind?" 

"Ah!  I  thought  that  was  coming.  Shall  I  tell 
you  my  opinion  of  you,  sir?  You  are  a  sickly 
sentimentalist." 

"My  feeling  about  you  is  not  so  hackneyed. 
With  your  philosophy  of:  il  am  all  right.  Let 
them  suffer!' — you  are — the  Modern  Stoic." 

119 


ON  PRISONS  AND   PUNISHMENT 


SOLITARY  CONFINEMENT 

(1) 

(An  open  letter  to  the  home  secretary — at  that  time,  May,  1909, 

the  Right  Honourable  Herbert  John  Gladstone, 

M.  P.)     Printed  in  '  The  Nation.' 

Sir: — In  addressing  you,  I  desire  to  say  that  I 
do  so  with  a  gratitude  and  respect  that  must  be 
shared  by  those  who  know  how  much  you  have 
already  done  for  the  improvement  of  our  prison 
system. 

I  head  this  letter  "Solitary  Confinement"  be- 
cause, though  the  expression  has  long  been  offi- 
cially abandoned  in  favour  of  the  term  "  Separate 
Confinement,"  it  more  adequately  defines  the 
seclusion  undergone  by  prisoners  in  closed  cells, 
and  distinguishes  that  system  from  a  practice  ob- 
taining in  local  prisons  of  setting  prisoners  to 
work  separately  in  their  cells  with  open  doors 
(when  it  is  impossible  to  find  them  work  in  asso- 
ciation). 

Solitary,  or  closed-cell,  confinement — that  is 
to  say,  complete  seclusion  every  day  for  nearly 

120 


PRISONS  AND  PUNISHMENT 

twenty-three  hours  out  of  twenty-four — is  now, 
sir,  as  you,  but  not  all  men,  know,  endured  by 
every  convict  (persons  sentenced  to  penal  servi- 
tude for  three  years  and  over)  during  the  first 
three,  six,  or  nine  months  of  his  sentence,  accord- 
ing to  class — star,  intermediate,  or  recidivist, — 
and  for  the  first  month  of  their  sentence  by  all 
prisoners  (except  juveniles)  sentenced  to  hard 
labour.  Closed-cell  confinement  for  women  con- 
victs lasts  four  months. 

It  is  the  object  of  this  letter  to  urge  on  you  the 
complete  abandonment  of  this  closed-cell  confine- 
ment, save  where  it  is  rendered  necessary  by  the 
conduct  of  the  convict  or  prisoner  after  his  arrival 
in  prison. 

In  order  to  demonstrate  the  weakness  of  the 
case  for  its  retention,  I  shall  first  quote  certain 
paragraphs  from  the  Report  of  the  Departmental 
Committee,  1895,  over  which  you,  sir,  presided. 
(The  italics  are  my  own.) 

52.  We  do  not  agree  with  the  view  that  separate 
confinement  is  desirable,  on  the  ground  that  it  enables 
the  prisoner  to  meditate  on  his  misdeeds.  We  are,  how- 
ever, disposed  to  agree  that  the  separate  system  as  a  gen- 
eral principle  is  the  right  policy.  The  separate  system 
rests  on  two  considerations  only.  It  is  a  deterrent,  and 
it  is  a  necessary  safeguard  against  contamination.  But 
we  are  not  of  the  opinion  that  association  for  industrial 

121 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

labour  under  proper  conditions  is  productive  of  harm.  On 
the  contrary,  we  believe  that  the  advantages  largely  out- 
weigh the  disadvantages.  .  .  .  Subject  to  this  condi- 
tion (careful  supervision)  and  to  a  proper  system  of 
classification,  Colonel  Garsia,  a  prison  official  of  great 
experience,  stated  in  his  evidence  that  there  was  no  dan- 
ger whatever  in  associated  work.  .  .  . 

53.  ...  We  think  that  this  limited  form  of  asso- 
ciation is  desirable  for  several  reasons.  (1)  It  is  a  wel- 
come relief  to  most  prisoners  from  the  dull  and  weary- 
ing monotony  of  the  constant  isolation  which  forces  men 
back  on  themselves,  and  in  many  cases  leads  to  moral  and 
physical  deterioration.  (2)  It  can  be  made  in  the  nature 
of  a  privilege  liable  to  suspension,  and  would  be,  there- 
fore, a  satisfactory  addition  to  the  best  kind  of  available 
punishment.  (3)  It  materially  lessens  the  difficulty  of 
providing  and  organising  industrial  labour  in  prisons. 
Prisoners  can  be  taught  trades  in  classes,  and  they  can 
then  work  in  association  under  proper  and  economical 
supervision  in  regular  workshops  or  halls  provided  for 
the  purpose.  (4)  It  is  more  healthy.  It  is  desirable  that 
cells  should  be  untenanted  for  some  hours  in  the  day,  and  in 
any  case  it  is  better  that  work  which  produces  dust 
should  not  be  carried  on  in  the  cells. 

55.  In  recommending  a  wider  adoption  of  associ- 
ated work,  we  must  admit  that  several  competent  wit- 
nesses expressed  disapproval  of  the  principle.  .  .  .  But 
upon  cross-examination,  it  did  not  appear  that  they  could 
sustain  their  objection  to  associated  labour  properly  super- 
vised, and  they  seemed  to  us  to  have  formed  their  opinion 
rather  because  separation  has  been  the  accepted  rule  of  the 
prison  system  than  on  any  experience  of  failure  of  the  asso- 
ciated system.  .  .  . 

122 


SOLITARY  CONFINEMENT 

76.  In  the  consideration  of  several  matters  con- 
tained in  the  reference,  we  had  to  touch  upon  the  practice 
of  confining  convicts  for  nine  months'  (now,  1909,  three, 
six,  or  nine)  solitary  imprisonment  either  in  local  or  con- 
vict prisons.  .  .  .  The  history  of  it  is  interesting  and 
suggestive.  It  was  originated  in  1842  by  Sir  James 
Graham,  then  home  secretary.  .  .  .  We  shall  show  how 
complete  a  change  in  the  apparent  object  of  the  practice 
has  since  occurred. 

77.  ...  The  convict  was  to  undergo  eighteen 
months'  solitary  imprisonment,  but  he  was  to  be  freely 
visited  by  chaplain  and  prison  officials  ...  he  was  to  be 
kept  in  a  state  of  cheerfulness;  hope,  energy,  resolution, 
and  virtue  were  to  be  imparted  to  him,  and  he  was  to  be 
trained  to  be  fully  competent  to  make  his  own  way  and 
become  a  respectable  member  in  the  penal  settlements. 

78.  In  1848  it  was  determined  that,  eighteen  months 
being  too  long  a  period  for  isolated  confinement,  a  sys- 
tem should  be  introduced  based  on  a  period  of  separate 
confinement,  followed  by  a  term  of  associated  labour, 
with  a  maximum  of  twelve  months.  This  was  reduced 
by  Lord  Palmerston  in  1853  to  nine  months.  The  orig- 
inal intention  of  Sir  J.  Graham,  which  was  that  this  period 
should  be  primarily  of  a  reformatory  character,  appears 
fifteen  years  later  to  have  been  lost  sight  of.  .  .  . 

79.  It  would  appear  from  Sir  J.  Jebb's  evidence  in 
1863  that  the  main  object  of  the  separate  (solitary)  con- 
finement had  come  to  be  deterrence.  .  .  . 

80.  In  effect,  this  is  the  purpose  which  it  must  be  re- 
garded as  now  designed  to  serve.  ...  It  is  certainly  a 
practical  convenience  in  the  sense  that  the  expense  of 
sending  convicts  immediately  after  sentence  to  convict 

123 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

prisons,  either  singly  or  in  small  detachments,  is  cur- 
tailed by  the  system  of  gathering  prisons.     This  consid- 
eration alone  is  not  sufficient  to  justify   the  practice.      The 
argument  that  it  is  a  necessary  discipline  for  penal  servi- 
tude, if  true,  is  no  argument  for  sending  the  convicts  to 
local  prisons.     We  do  not  regard  the  system  with  favour. 
We  see  no  objection  to  short  periods  of  detention  in  local 
prisons  for  the  purpose  of  collecting  parties  for  transfer 
to  the  convict  prisons;    but  if  the  system  is  a  good  one  at 
all,  we  think  it  ought,  as  far  as  possible,  to  be  worked 
out  in  the  convict  prisons  from  first  to  last.     We  think  it 
cannot  be  denied  that  cases  occur  in  which  a  nervous  condi- 
tion, agitated  by  remorse  and  by  a  long  continuance  of  the 
separate  system,  may  be  injuriously  affected  by  it.     From 
the  evidence  before  us  we  have  no  reason  to  believe  that 
such  cases  are  of  other  than  exceptional  occurrence.     We 
think  it  is  worth  considering  whether  the  severity  of  the 
system  might  not  be  mitigated  by  a  substantial  reduction  in 
the  period  of  separation.  .  .  . 

These,  sir,  were  the  conclusions  of  your  Com- 
mittee as  far  back  as  1895.  I  submit  that,  as  a 
whole,  they  point  to  the  existence  of  very  grave 
doubts  in  the  minds  of  its  members  as  to  the  wis- 
dom of  retaining  this  system  of  closed-cell  con- 
finement at  all.  Since  then  great  strides  have 
been  made  in  the  direction  of  the  classification 
of  prisoners,  and  of  associated  labour,  and  the 
whole  slow  trend  of  thought  and  effort  in  regard 
to  prisons  has  been  in  the  direction  of  reforma- 
tion of  the  prisoner. 

124 


SOLITARY  CONFINEMENT 

The  late  Sir  Edmund  Du  Cane,  though  one  of 
its  chief  supporters,  has  called  solitary  confine- 
ment .  .  .  "an  artificial  state  of  existence  abso- 
lutely opposed  to  that  which  nature  points  out  as  the 
condition  of  mental,  moral,  and  physical  health. 
.  .  ."  ("The  Punishment  and  Prevention  of 
Crime,"  p.  158.)  Its  effect  on  a  highly  strung 
temperament  is  thus  described  by  a  young  woman 
who  had  served  a  long  term  of  penal  servitude. 
.  .  .  "It  is  like  nothing  else  in  the  world — it  is 
impossible  to  describe  it;  no  words  can  paint  its 
miseries,  nothing  that  I  can  say  would  give  any 
idea  of  the  horrors  of  solitary  confinement — it 
maddens  one  even  to  think  of  it.  No  one  who  has 
not  been  through  it  can  conceive  the  awful  an- 
guish one  endures  when  shut  up  in  a  living  tomb, 
thrown  back  upon  yourself.  .  .  .  The  over- 
powering sensation  is  one  of  suffocation.  You 
feel  you  must  and  can  smash  the  walls,  burst 
open  the  doors,  kill  yourself !  .  .  ." 

Add  to  this  Sir  Robert  Anderson's  description 
of  his  sensations  (XlXth  Century,  March,  1902), 
after  he  had  caused  himself  to  be  locked  up  for 
only  a  few  hours  with  a  political  prisoner.  "I 
seemed  to  be  in  a  pit.  There  was  no  want  of  air, 
and  yet  I  felt  smothered.  My  nerves  would  not 
have  long  stood  the  strain  of  it." 

This  is  the  conclusion  from  personal  experi- 

125 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

ence,  of  H.  B.  Montgomery:  "The  whole  of  this 
procedure"  (solitary  confinement)  "is  cruel  and 
barbarous,  unworthy  of  a  humane  or  civilised  na- 
tion. To  my  knowledge,  it  drives  many  men 
mad,  and  even  when  it  does  not  induce  lunacy, 
mentally  affects  a  large  proportion  of  those  sub- 
jected to  it  .  .  ."  and:  "The  less  a  prisoner  is 
thrown  in  on  himself  and  the  more  he  is  encour- 
aged to  foster  his  home  ties,  the  less  likely  is  he 
to  descend  into  that  condition  of  despair  and  de- 
moralisation which  are  such  potent  factors  in 
driving  men  to  perdition." 

These  are  the  words  of  Colonel  Baker,  of  the 
Salvation  Army,  before  your  Departmental  Com- 
mittee of  1895:  "As  to  convicts  on  discharge,  I 
should  like  to  say  that  we  find  a  great  number  of 
them  incapable  of  pursuing  any  ordinary  occupa- 
tion. They  are  mentally  weak  and  wasted,  requir- 
ing careful  treatment  for  months  after  they  have 
been  received  by  us.  In  several  cases  they  are 
men  who  are  only  fit  to  be  sent  off  home  or  to  a 
hospital." 

These,  after  personal  experience,  are  the  com- 
ments of  W.  B.  N.  in  his  moderate,  and  stoical, 
book,  "Penal  Servitude": 

.  .  .  but,  at  the  best,  the  system  of  "separate  con- 
finement" is  a  very  bad  one.     It  is  only  solitary  confine- 

126 


SOLITARY  CONFINEMENT 

merit  slightly  improved,  and  it  has  some  of  the  worst 
effects  of  that  terrible  punishment.  The  intention  of  it, 
doubtless,  is  to  impress  the  prisoner  with  the  gravity  of 
his  offence  against  society,  and  to  bring  him  to  a  better 
state  of  mind.  But  in  some  cases,  I  am  convinced,  it 
has  quite  the  opposite  result.  The  solitude  and  the  hope- 
less monotony,  with  nothing  to  think  of  but  the*  long 
years  of  suffering  and  disgrace  ahead,  produces  nervous 
irritation  approaching,  in  some  cases,  to  frenzy,  and  in- 
stead of  softening  the  man  brings  out  all  the  evil  there  is 
in  him.  Under  such  conditions,  the  worst  companions 
he  could  have  are  his  own  thoughts.  In  men  of  a  dif- 
ferent temperament,  again,  it  deadens  all  sensibility,  so 
that  they  do  not  care  a  straw  what  happens  afterward, 
but  would  just  as  soon  become  habitual  criminals  as  not. 
It  is  this  sullen  hatred  of  themselves  and  of  everybody 
else  engendered  and  fostered  during  the  long  dismal 
months  of  separate  confinement  that  makes  the  most 
dangerous  and  troublesome  prisoners  at  a  later  stage. 
There  is  a  third  class,  who,  having  no  criminal  instincts, 
nor  any  strong  instincts  at  all,  merely  give  way  mentally, 
without  any  acute  distress,  and  become  little  better  than 
half-witted  by  the  time  their  separate  confinement  is  at 
an  end.  .  .  . 


These  are  the  remarks  of  Professor  Prins,  In- 
spector-General of  Belgian  prisons:  "Solitude 
produces  in  him  (the  vacuous-minded,  erratic,  and 
animal  person  who  is  usually  the  criminal)  no  in- 
tellectual activity  and  no  searching  of  conscience; 
it  serves  to  deepen  his  mental  vacuity  and  to  de- 

127 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

liver  him  over  to  unnatural  indulgence  in  the  one 
animal  appetite  of  which  he  cannot  be  deprived." 
("The  Criminal."    Havelock  Ellis,  p.  328.) 

Beltrani-Scalia,  formerly  Inspector-General  of 
Prisons  in  Italy,  is  of  the  same  opinion,  and  re- 
marks that  "the  cellular  system  looks  upon  man 
as  a  brother  of  La  Trappe."  ("The  Criminal," 
p.  329.) 

The  following  passage,  taken  from  Prince  Kro- 
potkin's  "Memoirs  of  a  Revolutionist,"  refers  to 
a  peasant,  confined  solitarily  in  a  cell  beneath 
him  in  the  Fortress  of  Peter  and  Paul,  and  with 
whom  he  and  his  neighbour  could  communicate  by 
knocking.  "Soon  I  began  to  notice,  to  my  ter- 
ror, that  from  time  to  time  his  mind  wandered. 
Gradually  his  thoughts  became  more  and  more 
confused  and  we  two  perceived,  step  by  step,  day 
by  day,  evidences  that  his  reason  was  failing,  until 
his  talk  became  at  last  that  of  a  lunatic.  Fright- 
ful noises  and  wild  cries  came  next  from  the  lower 
story;  our  neighbour  was  mad.  ...  To  wit- 
ness the  destruction  of  a  man's  mind  under  such 
conditions  was  terrible." 

Finally:  This  is  the  judgment  of  the  rector  of 
St.  Marylebone,  Doctor  W.  D.  Morrison  (after 
more  than  ten  years'  experience  as  prison  chap- 
lain): "It  tends  to  have  a  demoralising  effect 
upon  many  classes  of  prisoners." 

128 


SOLITARY  CONFINEMENT 

Such  evidence  might  be  multiplied  indefinitely. 

Now,  sir,  in  regard  to  the  object  of  solitary  con- 
finement we  have  surely  no  need  to  go  behind  the 
finding  of  your  Committee: 

"It  would  appear  that  the  main  object  of  the 
separate"  (closed-cell)  "confinement  had  come 
to  be  deterrence.  ...  In  effect  this  is  the  pur- 
pose which  it  must  be  regarded  as  now  designed 
to  serve." 

In  regard  to  its  nature,  we  have,  as  surely,  no 
need  of  other  description  than  its  supporter's, 
the  late  Sir  Edmund  Du  Cane's:  "An  artificial 
state  of  existence  absolutely  opposed  to  that 
which  nature  points  out  as  the  condition  of  men- 
tal, moral,  and  physical  health." 

The  questions  arising,  then,  are  two : 

(a)  Is  this  practice  of  solitary  confinement,  in 
fact,  deterrent? 

(6)  Has  a  civilised  nation  the  right  to  retain 
offenders  for  months  in  a  state  of  existence  abso- 
lutely opposed  to  mental,  moral,  and  physical 
health,  even  for  the  purpose  of  deterrence  ? 

As  to  question  (a) :  No  support  can  be  gath- 
ered for  the  plea  of  deterrence  from  the  statistics 
of  penal  servitude;  mere  severity  of  punishment 
has  never  been  proved  to  be  a  factor  of  deter- 
rence. When  men  were  hung  for  horse  or  sheep 
stealing  those  offences  were  far  more  prevalent 

129 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

than  they  are  now.  Moreover  the  nature  of 
their  coming  punishment  is  too  vaguely  known 
to  those  who  have  never  been  in  prison  for  the 
thought  of  solitary  confinement  to  have  any  de- 
terrent effect  on  ninety-nine  out  of  a  hundred 
first  offenders.  Indeed,  that  it  is  not  sufficiently 
present  to  any  man's  mind  is  afforded  by  the 
fact  that  so  humane  a  public  as  our  own  knows 
and  thinks  so  little  about  the  suffering  of  solitary 
confinement  as  to  have  allowed  it  to  remain  part 
of  their  prison  system. 

The  effect  of  a  period  of  solitary  confinement 
which  comes  at  the  beginning  of  long  years  of  im- 
prisonment is  inevitably  wiped  out  by  the  mo- 
notony of  the  prison  life  which  follows.  Mechan- 
ical adjustment  to  environment  is  always  going 
on  in  the  human  being.  Solitary  confinement  is 
a  smothering  process  to  which  the  mind  must 
adapt  itself,  or  perish.  The  mental  demoralisa- 
tion remains  after  the  confinement  comes  to  an 
end,  but  the  consciousness  of  that  mental  ruin, 
the  consciousness  of  the  suffering,  has  become 
dulled;  from  his  closed  cell  the  convict  passes  on 
to  the  ordinary  prison  life,  actually  unable  to 
appreciate  the  extent  of  the  misery  he  has  under- 
gone. Obviously,  moreover,  deterrence  (if  there 
be  deterrence)  paid  for  by  mental  and  moral 
weakening  is  not  true  deterrence;  for  the  acquired 

130 


SOLITARY  CONFINEMENT 

'power  of  resistance  to  crime,  if  any,  is  nullified 
through  deterioration  of  the  prisoner's  fibre. 

The  true  deterrence  of  imprisonment  lies  in 
the  general  fear  of  loss  of  liberty;  in  that  night- 
mare of  a  thought,  all  details  of  impending  pun- 
ishment (even  if  known)  mechanically  merge. 

This  solitary  confinement,  however,  is  some- 
times justified  on  the  ground  that  it  is  necessary 
to  buoy  the  convict  up  with  hope.  It  is  thought 
that  by  placing  him  at  the  outset  in  the  seventh 
hell  of  pain  we  lessen  his  sufferings  in  the  minor 
hells  which  await  him  at  the  expiration  of  those 
first  dire  months.  That,  sir,  is  humanity  with  a 
vengeance.  Imagine  this  principle  logically  ap- 
plied to  social  life.  The  husband  would  beat  the 
wife  that  she  might  not  so  greatly  feel  the  inevi- 
table wear  and  tear  of  matrimony;  the  mother 
would  starve  the  child  that  it  might  experience 
with  more  equanimity  the  ordinary  pangs  of 
hunger.  The  master  would  withhold  wages  that 
the  servant  might  more  duly  appreciate  the  re- 
ceipt of  what  was  due  to  him.  It  appears,  in- 
deed, to  be  almost  what  is  called  a  vicious 
principle. 

To  question  (6),  Whether  a  civilised  countiy 
has  the  right  to  retain  its  offenders  in  a  state  of 
existence  absolutely  opposed  to  mental,  moral, 
and  physical  health,  even  for  the  sake  of  a  sup- 

131 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

posed  deterrence — I  conceive,  sir,  but  this  one 
answer:  Only  so  long  as  we  do  not  realise  what 
this  solitary  confinement  of  convicts  means. 

Six  months  (to  take  the  mean  sentence)  is  a 
short  time  to  a  free  man;  it  is  an  eternity  to  a 
prisoner  confined  in  solitude.  One  hundred  and 
eighty  days — four  thousand  hours,  of  solitude 
and  silence  in  a  cell,  which — in  the  words  of  Sir 
Robert  Anderson  (XlXth  Century,  March,  1902) 
— "differs  from  every  other  sort  of  apartment 
designed  for  human  habitation,  in  that  all  view 
of  external  nature,  such  as  might  soothe,  and  pos- 
sibly alleviate,  the  mind,  is,  with  elaborate  care, 
excluded" — solitude  broken  only  by  one  hour  a 
day,  of  chapel,  and  walking  up  and  down  a  yard; 
by  the  sight  of  a  warder,  three  times  or  so  a  day, 
bringing  in  food;  by  a  ten  minutes'  visit  perhaps 
from  chaplain  or  governor. 

Four  thousand  hours  of  utter  solitude  in  a  closed 
space  thirteen  feet  by  seven — with  the  prospect 
of  anything  from  two  to  twenty  years  of  monoto- 
nous routine  and  loss  of  liberty  to  follow !  Can  a 
Public  Opinion,  which  succeeds  in  bringing  these 
facts  home  to  its  imagination,  justly  say  that 
two  and  a  half  to  twenty  years  of  loss  of  liberty, 
with  all  that  this  means  in  prison,  is  not  sufficient 
punishment  for  any  crime  that  man  can  commit, 
without  the  preliminary  agony  of  four  thousand 

132 


SOLITARY  CONFINEMENT 

hours  of  solitude  in  a  closed  space  thirteen  feet 
by  seven? 

Sir,  Public  Opinion  has  never  yet  succeeded  in 
realising  what  this  so-called  separate  confinement 
means.  In  the  year  ending  March,  1907,  we  set 
1,035  persons,  of  whom  691  had  never  been  sen- 
tenced to  penal  servitude  before,  to  endure  these 
hours  of  agony  and  demoralisation.  In  the  year 
ending  March,  1908,  we  set  another  1,179  to  en- 
dure the  same,  749  of  them  for  the  first  time. 
At  the  present  moment,  another  thousand,  more 
or  less,  are  undergoing  it. 

In  thus  subjecting  year  by  year  a  thousand 
persons  to  nine,  six,  or  three  months  of  an  "arti- 
ficial state  of  existence  absolutely  opposed  to 
that  which  nature  points  out  as  the  condition  of 
mental,  moral,  and  physical  health,"  we  are  an- 
nually committing  an  offence  against  our  reason, 
of  which  we  reap  the  full  reward  in  the  mental, 
moral,  and  physical  deterioration  of  persons  al- 
ready demoralised  enough;  and  an  offence  against 
our  humanity  in  reality  as  great  as  if  we  had 
placed  them  on  the  rack. 

I  by  no  means  lose  sight,  sir,  of  the  fact  that 
this  closed-cell  confinement  falls  with  different 
effect  on  different  temperaments;  it  falls,  no 
doubt,  far  less  heavily  on  the  sluggish  and  the  bru- 
talised  than  on  the  nervous  types,  of  which,  how- 

133 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

ever,  we  are  now  breeding  great  numbers.    But, 
sir,  even  the  habitual  criminal — popularly  sup- 
posed to  dread  flogging  more  than  anything — has 
been  known  while  enduring  solitary  confinement 
to  beg  for  the  lash  in  place  of  it.     Sir  J.  Jebb,  giv- 
ing  evidence  before   the   Penal   Servitude  Acts 
Commission  in  1863,  uses  these  words:    "With 
burglars   and   reckless   characters   I   think   that 
separate  confinement  is  dreaded  more  than  any 
other  kind  of  discipline."    And  in  regard  to  other 
effects  on  the  habitual  criminal,  the  words  of  Pro- 
fessor Prins,  above  quoted,  are  significant.     The 
sluggish  brutality  of  many  recidivists  is  produced 
in  the  first  place  by  this  very  process  of  closed- 
cell  confinement.    Man,  even  the  lowest  type  of 
man,  is  a  social  and  gregarious  animal — all  that 
is  best  in  him  depends  on,  and  is  brought  out  by 
contact  with  his  fellow  creatures;   if  that  be  not 
so,  our  religion  and  whole  social  scheme  are  falsely 
conceived.     Deprive  man  of  all  contact  with  his 
fellow  man,  shut  him  in  upon  himself,  hopelessly, 
utterly,  month  by  month,  and  he  will  come  out 
of  that  artificial  existence  lower  and  more  brutal 
than  when  he  entered  it.     Prolonged  starvation 
and  agony  of  the  mind  is  worse  than  starvation 
and  agony  of  the  body,  carrying,  as  it  does,  the 
wreck  of  the  body  with  it. 
We  have  the  right  to  restrain  offenders  and  to 

134 


SOLITARY  CONFINEMENT 

safeguard  society;  in  doing  this  we  unavoidably 
punish  with  that  already  terrible  punishment, 
"loss  of  liberty."  But,  sir,  we  have — -surely — not 
the  right  to  inflict  unnecessary  and  harmful  suf- 
fering. I  recognise  to  the  full  that  there  is  no 
lack  of  humanity  among  those  who  work  our 
prison  system;  recognise  to  the  full  that  they 
would  not  willingly  inflict  any  suffering  that  they 
acknowledged  to  be  unnecessary;  but  in  every 
department  of  life,  those  who  administer  a  system 
are,  in  the  nature  of  things,  with  rare  exceptions, 
too  habituated  to  that  system,  too  close  to  it, 
to  be  able  to  see  it  in  due  perspective. 

I  ask  you,  sir,  and  I  ask  the  common  sense  of 
the  public,  whether  harmful  and  unnecessary 
suffering  must  not  inevitably  be  endured  by  the 
mind,  and  through  the  mind  by  the  body,  of  a 
human  being,  during  these  thousands  of  hours  of 
closed-cell  confinement.  To  answer  that  ques- 
tion fairly,  each  member  of  the  public  has  but  to 
ask  what  would  be  the  effect  on  himself  or  her- 
self of  nine  or  six  or  even  three  months'  utter 
seclusion  (except  for  one  hour  each  day)  from  all 
sight  and  sound  not  only  of  human  beings,  but  of 
animals,  trees,  flowers,  and  from  the  sight  even 
of  the  sky,  all  but  a  patch  no  bigger  than  a  tea- 
tray.  We  are  on  the  whole  a  humane  people;  and 
it  is  not  so  much  a  question  of  our  humanity  as 

135 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

of  our  imaginations.  The  position  is  plainly 
this:  Those  who  have  to  work  our  prison  sys- 
tem, perhaps  could  not  do  so  at  all  if  they  allowed 
their  imaginations  fair  play.  The  community  are 
too  aloof  to  realise  what  that  prison  system  means. 
And  so,  sir,  the  unnecessary  demoralisation  and 
suffering  caused  by  this  closed-cell  confinement 
goes  on  at  the  rate  of  (for  convicts  alone)  more 
than  4,000,000  hours  a  year ! 

I  do  not  base  the  appeal  of  this  letter  so  much 
on  humanity  as  on  common  sense.  Why,  when 
we  are  faced  with  appalling  statistics  of  criminal- 
ity, with  appalling  difficulties  in  dealing  with, 
and  reforming  criminals,  do  we  deliberately  con- 
tinue a  practice  which  both  evidence  and  reason 
tell  us,  contributes  to  the  more  complete  demoral- 
isation of  such  as  are  already  demoralised? 

In  the  report  of  your  Departmental  Committee 
of  1895  occur  these  words:  "It  should  be  the  ob- 
ject of  the  prison  authorities  through  the  prison 
staff  and  any  suitable  auxiliary  effort  that  can 
be  employed,  to  humanise  the  prisoners,  to  pre- 
vent them  from  feeling  that  the  State  merely 
chains  them  for  a  certain  period  and  cares  noth- 
ing about  them  beyond  keeping  them  in  safe 
custody  and  under  iron  discipline." 

And  again:  ".  .  .  it  strengthens  our  belief 
that  the  main  fault  of  our  prison  system  is  that 

136 


SOLITARY  CONFINEMENT 

it  treats  prisoners  too  much  as  irreclaimable  crim- 
inals, instead  of  reclaimable  men  and  women." 

I  submit  that  no  unprejudiced  man  can  regard 
this  closed-cell  confinement  as  a  humanising  in- 
fluence, except  in  the  rarest  cases,  or  maintain 
that  it  helps  to  reclaim  men  and  women. 

I  refer  again  to  this  paragraph  in  the  report  of 
your  Committee:  "It"  (the  detention  of  convicts 
in  closed-cell  confinement  at  local  prisons)  "is 
certainly  a  practical  convenience  in  the  sense 
that  the  expense  of  sending  convicts  immediately 
after  sentence  to  convict  prisons,  either  singly 
or  in  detachments,  is  curtailed  by  the  system  of 
gathering  prisons.  This  consideration  alone  is  not 
sufficient  to  justify  the  practice." 

I  am  credibly  informed  that  the  whole  matter 
is  one  of  administration,  and  can  be  modified 
without  Act  of  Parliament.  I  appeal,  then,  to 
you,  sir,  who  have  already  done  so  much  toward 
reforming  our  prison  system,  to  work  for  the 
abandonment  of  this  custom  of  confining  con- 
victs in  closed  cells  for  nine,  six,  or  three  months, 
or  any  less  period,  either  in  local,  or  in  convict 
prisons;  to  substitute  therefor  work  in  associa- 
tion from  the  commencement  of  sentence;  or, 
where  such  is  not  immediately  possible,  work 
in  separate  cells  with  open  doors.  And  I  would 
further  appeal  to  you  to  advocate  the  reduction 

137 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

of  the  twenty-eight  days'  closed-cell  confinement 
endured  by  prisoners  serving  sentences  of  hard 
labour. 

Than  this  great  and  necessary  reform,  I  can 
conceive  none  that  will,  at  a  single  stroke,  re- 
move so  much  harmful  and  unnecessary  suffer- 
ing, or  do  more  to  reconcile  our  penal  laws  with 
justice  and  common  sense. 

(2) 

(From  a  Letter  to  Sir  Evelyn  Ruggles  Brise,  K.C.B.,  Prison 
Commission,  Whitehall,  July,  1909) 

"...    I  was  at  X Prison  on  Tuesday,  at 

V Prison   yesterday — saw   all   the   officials, 

and  talked  with  twelve  convicts.  ...  It  was 
suggested  to  me  at  X — —  that  I  ought  to  stay 
some  days  there  and  see  every  convict.  I  would 
be  willing,  if  you  will  allow  me,  to  stay  some  days 
at  X Prison,  see  every  convict,  and  keep  re- 
cord of  the  answers  obtained  from  each  one  as 
to  the  effect  on  him  of  separate  confinement.  I 
think  they  would  speak  to  me  freely.  From  all  I 
hear  and  certainly  from  its  situation  and  general 
airiness  and  lightness,  X—  Prison  is  the  best 
of  the  four  collecting  prisons,  and  there  would  be 
no  danger  of  getting  an  impression  more  unfa- 
vourable to  separate  confinement  than  I  should 
get  from  seeing  each  convict  in  all  four  prisons. 

138 


SOLITARY  CONFINEMENT 

"An  expression  used  during  our  conversation 
the  other  day  leads  me  for  a  moment  into  the 
deeper  and  wider  significance  of  this  question. 
It  was  the  expression  '  a  downright  enemy  of  soci- 
ety' used  of  a  certain  class  of  prisoner.    I  have 
been   thinking   over   that   phrase   'a   downright 
enemy  of  society'  to  see  if  one  more  meditation 
on  it  would  correct  the  conclusions  of  a  hundred 
previous  meditations,  but  I  do  not  feel  that  it  has. 
I  think  of  it  like  this:   Every  now  and  then,  sel- 
dom enough  but  still  too  frequently,  we  come 
across  children,  in  all  classes,  who,  from  the  age 
when  they  begin  to  act  at  all,  show  that  there  is 
something  in  them  warped,  distorted,  inherently 
inimical  to  goodness.    It  is  in  them,  of  them,  a 
taint  in  their  blood,  a  lesion  of  their  brain.    They 
grow  up.    They  are  not  insane,  but  they  have  a 
blind   spot,   a  place  in   their  souls   or   internal 
economy — or  whatever  you  like  to  call  it — that 
some  mysterious,  rather  awful,  hand  has  dark- 
ened.   They  are  doomed  from  their  birth  by  rea- 
son of  that  blind  spot  sooner  or  later  to  become 
criminals,  that  is,  to  commit  some  action  which  is 
not  consonant  with  the  actions  of  those  who  are 
born  without  this  blind  spot;  some  are  not  found 
out>  some  are.    When  found  out  they  are  known 
as  'the  criminal  type.'    They  form  a  portion,  not 
perhaps  a  very  large  one,  of  our  convicts.     Can 

139 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

those,  who  have  had  the  good  fortune  to  be  born 
like  their  fellows,  punish  these  unfortunates  for 
the  sake  of  punishing  them,  for  the  sake  of  aveng- 
ing society  ?    I  cannot  bring  myself  to  think  so. 

"  These  are  not,  however,  the  bulk  of  our  con- 
victs. The  greater  part  of  them  are  those  who 
are  born  more  or  less  normal,  but  with  what  is 
called  a  weak  character.*  I  don't  know  if  you 
have  ever  been  much  among  those  classes  which 
supply  the  vast  proportion  of  our  criminals;  if 
you  have,  you  will  recognise,  as  I  do,  what  a  won- 
derful thing  it  is  that  so  small  a  proportion  of 
them  become  criminals.  You  will  have  seen  the 
very  dreadful  struggle  they  have  against  luck 
from  the  time  when  they  begin  to  know  any- 
thing. You  will  feel,  as  I  do,  that  keeping  their 
heads  above  water  is,  and  must  be,  touch  and  go 
with  them  from  day  to  day;  they've  just  a  plank 
between  them  and  going  down,  and  a  very  little 
extra  sea  (it  runs  high  all  the  time)  tips  that 
plank  over.  Many  of  them  are  bred  in  slums  and 
garrets  where  the  only  real  god  is  Drink.  When 
they  go  under,  they  are  suddenly  up  against  the 
most  inexorable  thing  in  life,  Law  and  Order,  to 
whose  mercilessness  every  citizen  subscribes  in 
self-defence,  whether  he  will  or  no.    When  they 

*  Criminality,  I  now  think,  is  as  often  the  result  of  too  strong 
a  character,  or  rather  of  too  much  unbalanced  self-will. — J.  G. 

140 


SOLITARY  CONFINEMENT 

have  paid  their  debt  to  Law,  they  emerge  into 
the  same  conditions  against  which  they  were  too 
weak  by  nature  to  stand  up  before,  with  the  one 
weapon  they  had,  character,  either  gone,  or 
gravely  damaged.  It  is  not  remarkable  that  they 
go  down  again,  and  then  again,  and  so  on,  until 
they  become  'enemies  of  society.' 

"It  seems  to  me  that  gentlemen  (I  speak  in  the 
spirit),  holding  as  their  creed  the  duty  of  putting 
themselves  in  the  place  of  others,  cannot  recon- 
cile it  with  that  creed  to  punish  for  the  mere  sake 
of  punishing  those  whose  chances  in  life  have  been 
so  vastly  inferior  to  their  own. 

"These  general  considerations  must  be  plati- 
tudes to  you,  and  I  feel  that  you  do  not,  any 
more  than  I,  believe  in  punishment  as  a  means  of 
revenging  society,  but  merely  as  a  means  of  pro- 
tecting society  by  restraining  and  trying  to  re- 
form the  offender.  Society  (I  speak  in  the  widest 
sense  of  heredity  and  environment)  makes  the 
offender;  it  can  restrain,  but  it  cannot  with  jus- 
tice exact  vengeance  from  the  victims  of  its  own 
shortcomings. 

"All  hope  of  real  diminution  in  crime  and  crim- 
inals (in  default  of  better  social  conditions)  de- 
pends, in  my  belief,  not  on  the  infliction  of  'de- 
terrent suffering'  in  prisons,  but  first,  on  the 
extension  of  probation,  and  your  splendid  Bor- 

141 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

stal  system;  secondly,  on  abolition  of  'tickets  of 
leave/  and  that  vicious  principle  of  not  having 
done  with  the  offence  when  you  have  paid  the 
penalty  for  it;  thirdly,  on  a  moderate,  humane, 
and  reformatory  use  of  the  principle  of  detention 
of  the  hopeless  recidivist;  fourthly,  on  the  in- 
crease of  humanising  influences  brought  to  bear 
on  prisoners  in  prison.  I  give  full  weight  to  the 
necessity  for  not  making  prison  life  a  treat,  and 
to  the  consideration  that  what  would  be  hell  to 
us  may  be  comparative  ease  to  the  habitual 
criminal;  but  I  think  that  with  'closed-cell'  con- 
finement abolished,  we  might  still  make  our 
minds  easy.  The  man  who  will  come  back  to 
prison  life  from  choice,  so  long  as  he  can  get  his 
bread  in  freedom,  does  not  exist;  the  cumula- 
tive force  of  hard  and  regular  work,  of  silence,  of 
no  tobacco,  of  no  drink,  of  no  knowledge  of  what 
is  going  on  outside,  of  being  ordered  about  from 
morning  to  night,  of  being  a  number,  not  a  man, 
of  losing  all  touch  with  his  family  and  friends, 
above  all,  of  utter  monotony,  of  the  sense  at  the 
best  of  being  in  school,  at  the  worst  of  being  in 
slavery,  of  the  feeling  of  having  whole  years 
sponged  out  of  his  life  (for  a  man  does  not  live 
in  prison),  may  not  be  easy  to  grasp  for  those 
who  live  in  liberty  themselves,  but  it  is  none  the 
less  tremendous. 

142 


SOLITARY  CONFINEMENT 

"It  is  perhaps  superfluous  to  remind  you,  who 
for  so  many  years  have  been  fighting  for  and 
achieving  reforms,  of  what  a  queer,  hypnotising 
influence  ' things  as  they  are' — in  fact,  the  exist- 
ing system  has  on  the  minds  of  those  who  are 
constantly  confronted  with  it;  and  to  beg  you 
for  that  reason  to  take  due  discount  from  the 
evidence  of  those  who  are  necessarily  under  that 
hypnotic  influence;  just  as  no  doubt  you  will, 
without  my  begging  you,  take  discount  from  my 
appeal  on  the  ground  that  I  am  an  outsider. 

"I  can't  close  this  letter  without  saying  that 
it's  impossible  to  go  over  our  prisons  and  not  see 
that  the  country  has  in  yourself  a  great  reform- 
ing administrator;  I  shall  consider  it  a  rare  piece 
of  good  fortune  if  any  words  of  mine  help  to 
bring  about  in  your  mind  the  belief  that  this 
particular  feature  of  our  prison  system,  closed- 
cell  confinement,  requires  immediate  mitigation 
and  ultimate  elimination,   except  in  individual 


143 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

(3) 

A  Minute  on  Separate  Confinement,  For- 
warded to  the  Home  Secretary  and  the 
Prison    Commissioners,    September,    1909 

(Compiled  from  visits  paid  to  sixty  convicts  undergoing  sepa- 
rate confinement  in  X and  Y .  Prisons.     July  and 

September,  1909) 

By  the  courtesy  of  the  Prison  Commissioners, 
to  whom  my  thanks  are  due,  I  visited  these  con- 
victs in  their  cells,  and  conversed  privately  with 
each  one  of  them  for  from  ten  minutes  to  a  quar- 
ter of  an  hour.  I  put  certain  definite  questions 
to  each  in  regard  to  the  effect  of  separate  con- 
finement on  themselves,  and,  so  far  as  they  could 
tell  me,  on  other  prisoners,  prefacing  each  conver- 
sation by  the  information  that  I  was  in  no  way 
connected  with  the  prison  authorities.  My  ob- 
ject in  the  course  of  these  conversations  was  to 
get  behind  the  formal  question  and  answer,  to 
the  man's  real  feelings.  I  met  with  no  hostility, 
defiance,  or  conscious  evasion  in  any  single  case. 
In  some  cases  a  word  or  two  was  sufficient  to 
bring  a  rush  of  emotion.  Several  men  were  in 
tears  throughout  the  interview.  In  the  major- 
ity of  cases,  however,  I  found  it  difficult  to  get 
the  prisoners  to  express  themselves;  and  in  some 
cases  formal  answers,  stolidly  given,  were  re- 
versed   by    some    sudden   revelation    of    feeling 

144 


SOLITARY  CONFINEMENT 

evoked,  as  it  were,  in  spite  of  the  prisoner's  self. 
Generally  speaking,  I  judged  that  feelings  were 
understated  rather  than  overstated. 
The  summary  of  these  interviews  is  as  follows: 


Category 
A. 


Category 
B. 


Sixty  Convicts  Interviewed. 

Of  these: 
Eight  preferred  separate  confinement  to  work- 
ing in  association,  and  were  not  conscious  of   ■ 
harmful  effect. 

Fifteen  would  prefer  work  in  association,  but 

(1)  Having  suffered  from  their  separate  con- 
finement, had  got  more  or  less  used  to 
it.     (Three  cases.) 

(2)  Were  suffering,  but  thought  it  was  good 
for  them.     (Three  cases.) 

(3)  Were  so  incapable  of  expressing  their  ex- 
periences, that  no  definite  answer  could 
be  got  from  them.     (Nine  cases.) 

Thirty-seven  preferred  association;  suffered 
severely  from  separate  confinement;  and  as- 
serted that  they  had  been  harmed;  that  all 
prisoners  were  harmed,  and  some  driven 
crazy.  .  .  . 

Of  the  eight  convicts  in  Category    A  who  preferred 

separate : 

Four  were  educated  men  (three  of  whom  asserted  a  nat- 
ural preference  for  their  own  society,  in  or  out  of 
prison). 

One  was  an  old  recidivist  with  five  sentences  of  penal 
servitude. 

145 


Category 
C. 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

Two  (of  a  callous  type)  preferred  separate  confinement 
because  they  had  no  temptation  to  talk  and  get  into 
trouble. 

One  was  the  only  prisoner  I  saw  who  said  he  had  deliber- 
ately committed  his  offence  in  order  to  get  into  prison. 

The  following  phrases  taken  from  notes  made 
immediately  after  each  interview  indicate  the  gen- 
eral nature  of  the  suffering  experienced  by  pris- 
oners separately  confined. 

"I  used  to  look  up  at  the  window,  and  something 
seemed  to  pull  me  back." 

"The  first  month  was  awful,  I  didn't  hardly  know  how 
to  keep  myself  together.     I  thought  I  should  go  mad." 

"It's  made  me  very  nervous,  the  least  thing  upsets  me 
— I  was  not  nervous  before." 

"I've  got  a  daughter,  and  I  grieve  over  her  all  the  time 
— there's  nothing  to  take  your  mind  off." 

"I've  never  felt  right  since — it's  got  all  over  me." 
(This  man  cried  all  the  time.  He  seemed  utterly  un- 
nerved, and  broken  up.     A  Star  Class  man.) 

"I  feel  it  dreadfully.     It  gets  worse  as  it  goes  on." 

"It's  no  life  at  all.  I'd  sooner  be  dead  than  here." 
(This  man  was  very  tearful  and  quavery.) 

"My  first  spell  of  'separate'  nearly  drove  me  raving." 
(This  was  a  recidivist  serving  his  third  term.) 

"It  broke  me  down  on  my  first  sentence.     It  destroys 


a  man." 


'I  had  a  cold  lonely  feeling.  .  .  .    Nine  months  of  it 
is  killing  for  most  men." 

146 


SOLITARY  CONFINEMENT 

"It's  punishment  to  shut  up  a  man  for  nine  months." 
(This  is  a  fair  specimen  of  the  very  general  understate- 
ment of  evidently  acute  feelings.) 

"It'll  send  men  'up  the  stick.'"     (Off  their  heads.) 

"I'm  very  miserable  and  down-'earted.  You  feel  it 
more  and  more  as  you  get  older.  I  hardly  know  some- 
times what  I'm  doing."  (This  was  from  an  old  man  of 
61,  who  had  been  twenty  years  in  prison,  and  said  he  did 
not  expect  to  last  through  this  sentence.  He  had  still 
six  months  of  separate  to  run,  and  struck  me  as  very  broken 
up,  and  suffering.) 

"I  keep  'picturing'  things,  and  walking  about.  It 
sends  men  '  up  the  pole.' "  (Another  bad  case  of  a  young 
recidivist  of  29,  with  five  months  of  his  '  separate  '  still 
to  run.) 

"Walls  seem  to  close  in.  .  .  .  I  get  blankness  in  the 
brain — have  to  stop  reading." 

"It's  hell  upon  earth."     (An  educated  prisoner.) 

"Almost  unbearable  depression."  (An  educated  pris- 
oner.) 

"Sleep's  the  only  comfort." 

"I  sit  there  sometimes  at  work,  not  knowing  what  I'm 
doing." 

"I've  good  nerves.  A  man  with  bad  nerves  would 
soon  snuff  out  in  '  separate.'  " 

"  If  a  man  had  the  spy  hole  open  even,  so  that  he  could 
see  out,  it  would  make  a  vast  of  difference.  .  .  .  I've 
seen  numbers  of  men  come  on  the  public  works  from  their 
'separate,'  quite  silly." 

"I've  seen  many  a  man  driven  queer."  (This  recidi- 
vist had  served  four  terms  of  penal  servitude.) 

"  I've  seen  men  driven  off  their  nuts." 

147 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

I  could  not  get  an  admission  from  any  prisoner 
that  the  suffering  they  underwent  in  separate 
confinement  deterred  them  from  coming  back  to 
prison.  The  two  reasons  they  assigned  for  com- 
ing back  to  prison  were: 

(1)  That  they  had  so  little  chance  outside. 

(2)  Drink. 

It  is  obvious,  however,  that  the  separate  pe- 
riod is  almost  universally  regarded  as  much  the 
worst  part  of  the  sentence. 

My  reasons  for  believing  that — in  spite  of  this 
— separate  confinement  is  not,  in  fact,  deter- 
rent, were  given  in  my  open  letter  to  the  home 
secretary  (The  Nation,  May  1  and  May  8, 
1909);  this  belief  has  been  strengthened  rather 
than  weakened  in  the  course  of  this  investiga- 
tion. As  a  final  result  of  these  visits,  I  record 
my  deliberate  conviction  that  no  competent 
observer  with  any  knack  of  getting  at  men's 
feelings,  and  the  opportunity  of  conversing  in 
private  and  as  a  private  person,  with  the  prison- 
ers, could  come  to  any  other  conclusion  than 
that  an  immense  amount  of  harmful  and  un- 
necessary suffering  is  inflicted  by  closed-cell  con- 
finement extending  over  the  periods  (especially 
the  longer  periods)  now  prevailing.  It  is  my 
belief  that  if  the  authorities  were  able  to  adopt 
this  method  of  getting  at  the  real  state  of  the 

148 


SOLITARY  CONFINEMENT 

case,  the  system  would  not  remain  unaltered  for 
a  single  day. 

(4) 

(From  a  Letter  to  the  Home  Secretary,  the  Right  Honourable 
Herbert  John  Gladstone,  M.  P.,  October,   1909) 

.  .  .  "Every  day  that  passes  with  this  ques- 
tion undealt  with  means  so  many  thousand  hours 
of  solid,  tangible,  harmful,  removable  misery. 
There  is  a  distinction  between  this  particular 
kind  of  misery  and  any  other  experienced  by 
man  in  a  state  of  society  such  as  we  now  have  in 
England.  There  is  no  other  form  of  acute,  pro- 
longed misery  enforced  on  people  in  such  a  way 
as  that  they  can  by  no  possibility  avoid  it.  The 
old  saying:  'He  deserves  all  he'll  get  and  more/ 
stultifies  itself  the  moment  it  is  looked  into;  the 
plea  of  deterrence  does  not  hold  water;  and  this 
misery  stands  out  stark — a  survival  from  the  phi- 
losophy (!)  of  the  dark  ages.  ..." 

Note. — Solitary  or  separate  confinement  for  convicts  has  been 
reduced  from  nine,  six,  and  three  months  to  three  months  for 
'old  hands,'  and  one  month  for  the  other  two  classes  of  convicts. 
But  the  writer  feels  as  strongly  as  ever  that,  except  in  special 
cases,  it  should  be  done  away  with  altogether. — J.  G. 


149 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

II 
THE  SPIRIT  OF  PUNISHMENT 

(An  article  in  the  Daily  Chronicle,  1910) 

In  the  matter  of  our  administration  of  justice 
there  is  a  very  simple  question  to  be  asked  by 
every  man  of  his  own  conscience:  What  do  I 
believe  is  the  object  of  punishment?  Until  this 
question  has  been  asked  and  coherently  an- 
swered by  the  community,  it  is  obviously  as  mad 
to  apply  punishment  as  for  a  man  to  set  out  to 
dine  with  a  friend  of  whose  address  he  has  no 
knowledge.  But  by  how  many  people  has  this 
question  been  asked;  by  how  many  has  it  been 
coherently  answered? 

The  whole  administration  of  our  justice  at 
present  treads  the  quicksands  of  ambiguity  as 
to  the  object  of  punishment.  The  vast  major- 
ity of  us  have  never  put  to  ourselves  the  ques- 
tion at  all,  being  quite  satisfied  that  the  object 
of  punishment  is  to  "serve  people  right";  and 
out  of  the  small  minority  who  have  asked  the 
question  the  far  greater  number  have  given  them- 
selves no  coherent  answer.  And  yet  it  is  only 
from  a  coherent  and  wise  answer,  graven  in  let- 
ters of  stone  on  our  law  courts  and  prisons,  in 
letters  of  feeling  in  our  hearts,   that  hope  of 

150 


PRISONS  AND  PUNISHMENT 

diminution  in  crime,  and  in  the  damage  which 
arises  from  it,  both  to  the  community  and  to  the 
offender,  can  come. 

Now,  whatever  sentimental  relation  there  be 
between  punishment  and  our  deep  instincts  of 
equity,  the  object  of  punishment  is  the  protection 
of  society  and  the  reformation  of  the  offender.  That 
is  the  only  safe  rule  in  practice;  and  everything 
in  our  administration  of  justice  which  conflicts 
with  it  is  falsely  conceived.  But  it  is  the  com- 
monest thing  in  the  world  for  people  to  accept 
that  definition  without  considering  in  the  least 
what  it  means;  for  experts,  after  thoroughly 
agreeing  with  it,  to  suddenly  remark  that  for 
such  and  such  a  crime  they,  personally,  would 
have  no  mercy;  for  sentences  to  be  passed  in 
which  the  judge  has  obviously  fitted  the  pun- 
ishment to  his  private  views  of  the  heinousness 
of  the  crime,  without  real  regard  for  the  protec- 
tion of  society,  or  for  the  reformation  of  the 
person  sentenced.  All  which  is  extremely  nat- 
ural and  very  bad. 

The  confusion  arises  from  not  keeping  the 
idea  of  the  protection  of  society  closely  enough 
coupled  with  the  idea  of  the  reformation  of  the 
offender;  from  dwelling  too  much  on  the  past, 
and  not  looking  enough  to  the  future;  from  the 
continued  existence  of  the  old  theory,  "an  eye 

151 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

for  an  eye/'  condemned  to  death  over  nineteen 
hundred  years  ago,  but  still  dying  very  hard  in 
this  Christian  country. 

The  protection  of  society  includes  the  adjust- 
ment of  punishment  so  as  not  to  leave  on  the 
mind  of  the  injured  person  a  crude  sense  of  injury 
unhealed  by  retribution.  It  includes  the  removal 
from  individuals  of  the  desire  to  take  the  law 
into  their  own  hands.  It  is  necessary  to  preserve 
in  punishment  a  due  element  of  deterrence.  The 
State  and  those  who  administer  its  functions  have 
no  business  with  anything  but  the  scientific  appli- 
cation of  the  best  means  to  do  all  this,  and  reform 
the  offender. 

Yet  in  the  glibbest  way  that  golden  rule,  "pro- 
tection of  society  and  reformation  of  the  of- 
fender," is  cited  to  cover  all  the  flaws  in  our  ad- 
ministration of  justice. 

In  its  name  men  are  prosecuted,  when  with 
better  comprehension  they  should  be  warned  or 
helped. 

In  its  name  first  offenders  are  imprisoned, 
when  with  better  comprehension  the  imprison- 
ment of  first  offenders,  of  whatever  age,  for  what- 
ever offence,  should  be  unknown;  a  much  greater 
danger  to  society  arises,  and  infinitely  less  chance 
of  reforming  the  delinquent  exists,  when  that  de- 
linquent has  once  been  committed  to  prison.   Place 

152 


PRISONS  AND  PUNISHMENT 

him  on  probation,  or  send  him  to  a  reformatory 
institution  such  as  Borstal,  for  whatever  fixed 
period  may  seem  necessary — but  to  a  prison,  as 
prisons  now  are,  never!  To  send  him  there  is 
fatal,  hopeless,  uneconomic,  unscientific. 

In  its  name,  the  continuance  of  closed-cell 
confinement  is  defended;  and  we  endeavour  to 
reform  men  by  consigning  them  to  the  opera- 
tion of  what,  in  the  words  of  its  stanch  sup- 
porter (the  late  Sir  Edmund  Du  Cane),  is  "an 
artificial  state  of  existence,  absolutely  opposed 
to  that  which  nature  points  out  as  the  condition 
of  mental,  moral,  and  physical  health."  We 
tiy  in  fact  to  protect  society  by  a  method  that 
does  not  reform.  Many  have  raised  their  voices 
against  this  strange  practice  since  evidence,  given 
before  the  Select  Committee  on  Prison  Disci- 
pline, 1850,  described  closed-cell  confinement  as 
dangerous  to  health  and  unjust  to  the  prisoner, 
"because  it  throws  him  back  into  society  with 
diminished  physical  ability  to  encounter  the 
variableness  of  climate,  the  severity  of  labour, 
and  the  pinchings  of  want,  to  which  as  a  labourer 
in  the  market  of  competition  he  must  ever  be 
liable"  .  .  .  !  Yet  in  the  name  of  the  golden 
rule  the  practice  lingers  on,  helping  to  rot  men 
and  women. 

In   the   name   of   this   golden   rule,   prisoners 

153 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

working  in  association  are,  in  our  prisons,  forced 
into  an  unnatural  silence,  for  ever  furtively 
evaded.  Some  silence  may  be  good  but  per- 
petual silence  is  too  unnatural  not  to  defeat 
itself.  Classification  is  the  true  preventive  of 
contamination,  not  complete  separation,  nor  per- 
petual silence. 

In  its  name  the  handicap  of  the  ticket-of- 
leave,  now,  thank  heaven,  modified,  is  placed  on 
those  who  are  desperately  handicapped  already. 

The  idea  behind  these  and  other  practices  of 
the  administration  of  our  justice  is  that  much 
deterrent  suffering  is  needful  for  the  protection  of 
society  and  the  reformation  of  the  offender.  But 
those  who  know  human  nature  know  that,  ex- 
cept in  rare  cases,  human  beings  cannot  be  re- 
formed by  suffering  inflicted  on  them  against 
their  will,  and  it  is  no  use  having  a  system  of 
punishment  beneficial  to  the  few  and  harmful 
to  the  majority.  The  late  Lord  Coleridge  once 
made  these  remarks: 

There  are  few  things  more  frequently  borne  in  on  a 
judge's  mind  than  the  little  good  he  can  do  the  criminal 
by  the  sentences  he  imposes.  These  sentences  often  do 
nothing  but  unmixed  harm,  though  I  am  sure  that  through- 
out the  country  the  greatest  pains  are  taken  to  make  our 
prisons  as  useful  as  possible  in  the  way  of  being  reforma- 
tories.    But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  they  are  not  so. 

154 


PRISONS  AND  PUNISHMENT 

Greater  pains  are  now  taken  than  when  those 
words  were  spoken,  but  a  man  cannot  go  over 
prisons  (I  do  not  speak  of  the  Borstal  institu- 
tions) without  seeing  that  they  are  not,  cannot 
be,  reformatory. 

Reformation  does  not  come  from  beating  on 
the  prisoner's  fibre  with  the  dull  mallet  of  suffer- 
ing. To  reform  one  must  inspire.  There  is  a 
spark  of  good  in  every  man's  breast;  the  only 
chance  lies  in  fanning  that  spark.  But  if  we 
are  not  reforming  men  in  our  prisons,  how  can 
we  be  said  to  be  protecting  society  by  sending 
them  there?  We  are  surely  endangering  soci- 
ety and  nurturing  the  spirit  of  crime. 

The  fact  of  the  matter  is  this:  Revenge  is  still 
at  the  back  of  our  minds.  Let  a  man  argue  on 
the  subject  with  whomsoever  he  will,  ten  min- 
utes will  not  have  passed  before  he  makes  that 
discovery.  The  State  still  feels  that  because  a 
man  has  hurt  it,  it  must  hurt  him.  And  this 
feeling  destroys  all  the  economy  and  science  of 
our  laws.  When  a  crime  is  committed,  all  we 
should  be  concerned  with,  in  our  own  interests, 
is  the  application  of  the  best  possible  means  to 
minimise  the  results  of  that  crime,  to  insure 
that  society  shall  run  the  least  possible  risk  of  a 
repetition  of  the  crime,  and  the  offender  the 
least  possible  risk  of  remaining  a  criminal. 

155 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

In  doing  this  we  cannot,  in  very  many  cases, 
avoid  the  detention  of  our  criminals;  but  we 
can,  and  should,  avoid  inflicting  suffering  on 
those  whom  we  detain,  beyond  the  already  great 
suffering  and  deprivation  inseparable  from  dis- 
ciplinary detention,  and  all  that  disciplinary  de- 
tention implies;  for  by  deliberately  superadding 
such  sufferings  as  solitude  or  perpetual  unre- 
lieved silence,  we  do  not  to  any  appreciable  de- 
gree deter  others  from  committing  offences,  and 
we  do  foster  in  those  whom  we  imprison  the  dis- 
position to  commit  fresh  offences  when  they  are 
released. 

That  diminution  of  crime  depends,  not  on  de- 
terrent punishment,  but  on  wide  and  impalpable 
influences — growth  of  social  feeling,  spread  of 
education,  betterment  of  manners,  decrease  of 
intemperance,  improvement  in  housing,  a  hundred 
other  causes — is  plain  from  the  official  statement 
lately  issued.  "The  members  of  the  predatory 
classes  are  appreciably  fewer  than  in  1857,  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  in  the  interim  population 
has  almost  doubled."  And  this  in  the  face  of 
admittedly  milder  penal  measures !  For  further 
evidence  that  mere  severity  of  treatment  does 
not  deter  we  need  only  look  at  the  comparative 
success  of  the  Elmira  Reformatory  in  the  United 
States,  and  the  Borstal  institutions  here.     Under 

156 


PRISONS  AND  PUNISHMENT 

these  systems,  which  allow  the  offender  some 
kind  of  natural  life,  the  percentage  of  those  who 
return  to  crime  is  most  notably  smaller. 

Crime  is  disease — if  not  in  the  medical,  in  the 
moral  sense  of  the  word.  It  is  either  the  dis- 
ease of  weakness,  or  of  unbalanced  self-will,  or 
the  disease  of  inherited  taint.  We  have  fought 
against  this  conclusion  because  we  still  harbour 
the  spirit  of  revenge;  but  as  knowledge  ad- 
vances we  shall,  we  must,  accept  it.  And  the 
sooner  we  do  accept  it  the  less  money  we  shall 
waste,  the  less  harmful  and  unnecessary  suffer- 
ing shall  we  inflict. 

The  difficulties  of  judicial  and  prison  admin- 
istration are  enormous,  the  force  of  prejudice 
encountered  by  reforming  administrators  ter- 
rific— all  the  more  terrific  because  these  prej- 
udices, in  the  main  conscientious,  are  wholly 
reinforced  by  the  fact  that  change  means  trouble 
and  expense,  by  fears  of  making  things  worse, 
by  all  the  accumulated  momentum  of  "things 
as  they  are."  For  a  man  with  any  understand- 
ing in  his  composition  it  is  impossible  not  to 
sympathise  with  those  who,  administering  jus- 
tice, earnestly  desire  to  do  their  best,  and  are 
often,  one  is  sure,  sick  at  heart  from  the  feeling 
that  what  they  are  doing  is  not  the  best. 

It  rests  with  public  opinion  in  this  country  to 

157 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

reanimate  our  attitude  toward  crime:  to  shake 
itself  free  of  our  muddled  conceptions  of  the 
object  of  punishment;  to  scotch  once  for  all  the 
spirit  of  revenge;  to  rise  to  a  higher,  more  scien- 
tific and  incidentally  more  economic,  conception 
of  our  duty  toward  criminals.  Let  us  get  rid 
of  the  idea  that  we  are  protecting  society  and 
reforming  offenders  by  inflicting  suffering  that 
we  falsely  call  deterrent.  Let  us  change  our 
prisons  into  Borstal  institutions,  and  let  us  do 
it  as  soon  as  is  humanly  possible.  Loss  of  lib- 
erty is,  next  to  loss  of  life,  the  most  dreaded  of 
all  fates;  it  has,  in  and  by  itself,  almost  all  the 
deterrent  force  that  is  needful.  There  may  be 
here  and  there  men  who  prefer  to  be  detained 
under  strict  discipline  to  being  at  liberty;  but  if 
there  be,  it  can  only  be  said  that  the  conditions 
of  their  lives  outside  prison  must  constitute  a 
disgrace  to  our  civilisation,  and  that  our  penal  sys- 
tem cannot  safely  or  justly  be  allowed  to  rest  on 
any  acquiescence  in  that  disgrace.  In  the  last 
annual  report  of  the  Borstal  Association  occur 
the  following  words:  "It  is  not  a  namby-pamby 
method.  .  ..  .  The  panic-monger  who  prophe- 
sies that  the  ambitious  youth  of  the  working 
classes  will  still  clamour  for  admission  through  the 
gateway  of  crime  to  the  advantages  of  Borstal, 
would  be  regarded  as  a  humorist  by  those  who 

158 


PRISONS  AND  PUNISHMENT 

have  been  there  and  '  have  had  enough  and  learnt 
sense.'  " 

Let  us,  then,  take  discipline  and  loss  of  lib- 
erty as  our  sole  deterrents,  and  on  those  whom 
we  deprive  of  liberty  let  us  use  all  the  resources 
of  a  common  sense  that  shall  refuse  to  apply  to 
criminals  methods  which  would  be  scouted  in 
the  reform  of  human  beings  outside  prisons. 

All  evidence  shows  that  mere,  so-called  deter- 
rent, severity  is  useless.  Let  us  no  longer  fly 
in  the  face  of  evidence.  Let  us  conform  to  facts. 
If  we  seriously  desire  to  reduce  crime  to  its  irre- 
ducible minimum,  we  must  go  to  work  like  doc- 
tors. 

Ill 

AN  UNPUBLISHED  PREFACE 

(Written  in  1910) 

It  is  not  my  habit  to  write  prefaces,  but  there 
are  certain  things  I  want  to  say  concerning  the 
play  'Justice,'  as  to  its  subject-matter,  not  its 
artistic  qualities,  bad,  good,  or  indifferent. 

Holding  perhaps  a  more  intimate  knowledge 
of  its  author's  mind  than  can  elsewhere  be  ob- 
tained, I  would  remark  that  the  play  is  no  indict- 
ment or  attack,  but  a  picture  of  the  whole  pro- 
cess  of  justice   as   seen   by   this  painter's  eye. 

159 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

There  are  thickenings  of  line  here  and  thinnings 
there,  occasioned  by  lack  of  technical  knowledge, 
or  demanded  by  the  exigencies  of  dramatic  craft, 
but  the  spiritual  essence  of  the  matter  is  set  down 
honestly,  as  best  it  could  be  perceived  by  him. 

Justice  was  known  by  the  ancients  to  be  blind; 
by  ourselves  is  admitted  blind;  will  be  acclaimed 
blind  by  the  tongues  of  our  descendants.  It  is 
blind  because  it  is  depart-  or  rather  compart- 
mental. 

The  prosecutor,  be  he  ancient  Roman  or  Eng- 
lishman of  to-day,  cannot  gauge  or  control  the 
whole  effect  on  the  offender  and  on  society  of  the 
process  which  he  initiates.  The  Judge,  be  he 
Solon  or  Judge  of  the  High  Court,  cannot  know 
enough  of  the  temperament  and  antecedents  of 
a  prisoner  to  adequately  apportion  a  sentence 
which  he  cannot  see  being  carried  out.  The 
prison  official  is  tied  to  the  terms  of  the  sentence 
and  the  conditions  of  the  system,  for  some  sys- 
tem there  must  be.  The  Public,  on  the  prisoner's 
release,  acts  mechanically  in  its  own  defence 
against  a  marked  man.  All  see  only  their  own 
bits  of  the  game. 

From  this  general  blindness,  it  follows  that 
punishment  is  almost  always  out  of  proportion. 
This  is  why  it  seemed  to  me  worth  while  to  make 
a  picture  of  Blind  Justice,  and  to  hang  it  on  the 

160 


PRISONS  AND  PUNISHMENT 

wall.  There  are  some  who  believe  that  this  pic- 
ture will  rapidly  become  out  of  date.  I  am  not 
so  sanguine.  Short  of  our  all  becoming  not  only- 
eager,  but  able,  to  see  that  which  does  not  lie 
underneath  our  noses,  I  much  fear  that  this  pic- 
ture will  remain  valid  for  some  considerable 
time.  The  conditions  will  change,  but  the  spirit 
will  remain — Justice  is  too  naturally  and  inevi- 
tably blind.  Is  that  any  reason  why  we  should 
not  occasionally  be  reminded  of  the  fact — one 
of  the  enduring,  but  perhaps  diminishable,  facts 
of  human  life?  Even  the  administrators  of  this 
Justice  might  like  now  and  then  to  glance  at  a 
picture  of  its  blindness. 

One  word  about  the  cell  scene.  It  has  been 
called  false  and  exaggerated.  .  .  .  Two  brothers 
went  to  see  this  play.  At  the  end  of  the  cell 
scene  the  younger,  who  stammers,  turned  to  his 
elder  and  said:  "It's  n-not  so — j-j — oily  as  all 
that!" 

Precisely !  Prisoners  do  not  commonly  enjoy 
the  relief  of  beating  on  their  cell  doors,  though 
the  incident  is  not  unknown.  But  he  who  can 
project  himself  into  the  minds  of  others,  knows 
that  prisoners,  in  closed  cells,  moping  and  brood- 
ing week  after  week,  month  after  month,  shut  off 
from  all  real  distraction,  from  all  touch  with  the 
outer  world  and  everything  they  care  for,  with 

161 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

the  knowledge  of  years  of  imprisonment  before 
them  and  of  broken  lives  when  they  come  out — 
knows  that  such  prisoners,  thousands  of  them, 
unseen  by  any  eye,  reach  a  state  of  mind  which 
would  make  them  constantly  fling  themselves 
for  relief  on  their  cell  doors,  if  it  were  not  for 
fear.    No,  it  is  not  so  jolly  as  all  that ! 

The  characteristics  of  all  prison  life,  at  all 
events  in  England,  are  silence  and  solitude,  phys- 
ical or  spiritual;  and  this  cell  scene  was  selected 
to  convey,  as  nearly  as  the  limitations  of  the  stage 
permitted,  these  commonest  characteristics  of  de- 
tention. 

For  the  truth  of  this  picture  of  Blind  Justice, 
as  a  whole,  I  rely  on  the  testimonial  of  that  the- 
atre attendant,  employed  out  of  charity,  who, 
having  been  prosecuted,  sentenced,  imprisoned, 
and  released,  knew,  let  us  hope,  more  of  the  mat- 
ter spiritually,  than  those  who  criticise.  After 
the  play  on  the  first  night,  to  the  question  of  his 
manager:  "Well,  is  it  true?"  he  looked  up 
from  his  sweeping,  and  said:  "Every  word  of 
it,  sir." 

I  have  only  this  to  add :  If  each  scene  is  taken 
separately  and  looked  on  with  a  departmentally 
professional  eye,  it  must  needs  seem  out  of  draw- 
ing, for  it  was  visualised  by  an  eye  looking  on 
each  department  only  in  relation  to  the  whole. 

162 


PRISONS   AND   PUNISHMENT 

When  the  professional  reader  or  spectator  of 
the  Court  or  Prison  scene,  says:  "Oh!  this  or 
that  is  not  true!"  he  is  criticising  from  the  de- 
partmental, and  not  from  the  bird's-eye  point 
of  view,  which  an  author  must  needs  assume. 
Even  if  the  sentence  be  more  than  typically 
severe,  though  I  doubt  that,  or  the  judgment 
not  typically  worded,  they  serve  well  enough  as 
illustrations  of  that  blindness  which  has  accom- 
panied the  wisest  judgments  of  one  human  being 
on  another  since  the  world  began. 

No,  the  only  legitimate  criticism  which  the 
professional  reader  or  spectator  can  pass  is  that 
the  particular  bird's-eye  view  is  wrong.  To  that 
criticism  this  bird  can  make  no  answer,  except  to 
say  with  deference  and  courtesy  that  he  must  be- 
lieve in  his  own  eye — for  it  is  all  he  has  to  see 
with. 


163 


ON  THE  POSITION  OF  WOMEN 


"GENTLES,  LET  US  REST!" 

(A  Paper  in  The  Nation,  1910) 

A  man  asked  to  define  the  essential  charac- 
teristics of  a  gentleman — using  the  term  in  its 
widest  sense — would  presumably  reply:  The 
will  to  put  himself  in  the  place  of  others;  the 
horror  of  forcing  others  into  positions  from  which 
he  himself  would  recoil;  the  power  to  do  what 
seems  to  him  right  without  fear  of  what  others 
may  say  or  think. 

There  is  need  just  now  of  aid  from  these  prin- 
ciples of  gentility  in  a  question  of  some  impor- 
tance— the  future  position  of  women. 

The  ground  facts  of  difference  between  the 
sexes  few  are  likely  to  deny: 

Women  are  not,  and  in  all  probability  never 
will  be,  physically,  as  strong  as  men. 

Men  are  not,  nor  ever  will  be,  mothers. 

Women  are  not,  and,  perhaps,  never  should  be, 
warriors. 

To  these  ground  facts  of  difference  are  com- 

164 


POSITION  OF  WOMEN 

monly  added,  in  argument,  many  others  of  more 
debatable  character.  But  it  is  beside  the  pur- 
pose of  this  paper  to  inquire  whether  women 
have  as  much  political  sense  or  aptitude  as  men, 
whether  a  woman  has  ever  produced  a  master- 
piece of  music,  whether  the  brain  of  a  woman 
ever  weighed  as  much  as  the  brain  of  Cuvier  or 
Turgenev. 

This  paper  designs  to  set  forth  one  cardinal 
and  overmastering  consideration,  in  comparison 
with  which  all  the  other  considerations  affecting 
the  question  seem  to  this  writer  but  as  the  little 
stars  to  the  full  moon. 

In  the  lives  of  all  nations  there  come  mo- 
ments when  an  idea,  hitherto  vaguely,  almost 
unconsciously  held,  assumes  sculptured  shape, 
and  is  manifestly  felt  to  be  of  vital  significance 
to  a  large,  important,  and  steadily  increasing 
section  of  the  community.  At  such  moments  a 
spectre  has  begun  to  haunt  the  national  house — 
a  ghost  which  cannot  be  laid  till  it  has  received 
quietus,. 

Such  a  ghost  now  infests  our  home. 

The  full  emancipation  of  women  is  an  idea  long 
vaguely  held,  but  only  in  the  last  half-century 
formulated  and  pressed  forward  with  real  force 
and  conviction,  not  only  by  women  but  by  men. 
Of  this  full  emancipation  of  women,  the  political 

165 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

vote  is  assuredly  not,  as  is  rather  commonly  sup- 
posed in  a  land  of  party  politics,  the  be-all  and 
end-all;  it  is  a  symbol,  whose  practical  impor- 
tance^— though  considerable — is  as  nothing  be- 
side the  fulfilment  of  the  idea  which  it  symbol- 
ises. 

The  Will  to  Power  and  the  Will  to  Love  have 
been  held  up,  in  turn,  as  the  animating  princi- 
ples of  the  Universe;  but  these  are,  rather,  cor- 
relative half-truths,  whose  rivalry  is  surely  stilled 
and  reconciled  in  a  yet  higher  principle,  the  Will 
to  Harmony,  to  Balance,  to  Equity — a  supreme 
adjustment,  or  harmonising  power,  present  wher- 
ever a  man  turns;  by  which,  in  fact,  he  is  condi- 
tioned, for  he  can  with  his  mental  apparatus  no 
more  conceive  of  a  Universe  without  a  Will  to 
Equity  holding  it  together,  than  he  can  con- 
ceive the  opposite  of  the  axiom:  "Ex  nihilo  nihil 
fit."  There  is  assuredly  no  thought  so  stagger- 
ing as  that,  if  a  blade  of  grass  or  the  energy 
contained  within  a  single  emotion  were — not  trans- 
muted— but  withdrawn  entirely  from  the  Uni- 
verse, the  balance  would  tip  for  ever  and  the 
Universe  crumble  in  our  imaginations  to  thin  air. 

Now  social  and  political  equity  emanates 
slowly,  with  infinite  labour,  from  our  dim  con- 
sciousness of  this  serene  and  overlording  prin- 
ciple of  Equity.    There  would  seem,  for  example, 

166 


a 


GENTLES,   LET  US  REST!" 


no  fundamental  reason  why  limits  should  ever 
have  been  put  to  autocracy,  the  open  ballot  de- 
stroyed, slavery  abolished,  save  that  these  things 
came  to  be  regarded  as  inequitable.  In  all  such 
cases,  before  reaching  the  point  of  action,  the 
society  of  the  day  puts  forward  practical  rea- 
sons, being,  so  to  speak,  unaware  of  its  own 
sense  of  divinity.  But,  underneath  all  the  seem- 
ing matter-of-factness  of  political  and  social 
movements,  the  spirit  of  Equity  is  guiding  those 
movements,  subtly,  unconsciously,  a  compelling 
hand  quietly  pushing  humanity  onward,  ever  un- 
seen save  in  the  rare  minutes  when  the  spirits 
of  men  glow  and  light  up,  and  things  are  beheld 
for  a  moment  as  they  are.  The  history  of  a  na- 
tion's spiritual  development  is  but  the  tale  of  its 
wistful  groping  toward  the  provision  of  a  ma- 
chinery of  State,  which  shall,  as  nearly  as  may 
be,  accord  with  the  demand  of  this  spirit  of 
Equity.  Society,  worthy  of  the  name,  is  ever 
secretly  shaping  around  it  a  temple,  within  which 
all  the  natural  weaknesses  and  limitations  of  the 
dwellers  shall  be,  not  exploited  and  emphasised, 
but  to  the  utmost  levelled  away  and  minimised. 
It  is  ever  secretly  providing  for  itself  a  roof  under 
which  there  shall  be  the  fullest  and  fairest  play 
for  all  human  energies,  however  unequal. 

The  destinies  of  mankind  are  seen  to  be  guided, 

167 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

* 

very  slowly,  by  something  more  coherent  than 
political  opportunity;  shaped  steadily  in  a  given 
direction,  toward  the  completion  of  that  temple 
of  justice.  There  is  no  other  way  of  explaining 
the  growth  of  man  from  the  cave-dweller  to  his 
present  case.  And  this  slow  spiritual  shaping 
toward  Equity  proceeds  in  spite  of  the  workings 
of  the  twin  bodily  agents,  force  and  expediency. 
Social  and  political  growth  is,  in  fact,  a  process 
of  evolution,  controlled,  directed,  spiritualised 
by  the  supreme  principle  of  Equity. 

This  is  to  state  no  crazy  creed,  that  because 
equality  is  mathematically  admirable,  equality 
should  at  all  times  and  in  all  places  forthwith 
obtain.  Equality,  balance,  is  a  dream,  the 
greatest  of  all  visions,  the  beloved  star — ever 
to  be  worshipped,  never  quite  reached.  And 
the  long  road  toward  it  travels  the  illimitable 
land  of  compromise.  It  would  have  been  futile, 
as  it  was  in  fact  impossible,  to  liberate  slaves, 
when  the  consciousness  of  the  injustice  of  slav- 
ery was  present  only  in  a  few  abnormal  minds, 
and  incommunicable  by  them  to  the  mind  of 
the  surrounding  society  of  the  time.  The  pro- 
cess is  slow  and  steady.  Equity  well  knows  that 
there  is  a  time  for  Her,  as  for  all  other  things. 
She  is  like  the  brain,  saying  to  the  limbs  and 
senses:   You  are  full  of  queer  ways.    It  is  for  me 

168 


"GENTLES,  LET  US  REST!" 

to  think  out  gradually  the  best  rule  of  life,  under 
which  you  must  get  on  as  you  can,  the  Devil 
taking  the  hindmost;  and  from  tiying  to  devise 
this  scheme  of  perfection  I  may  not,  nor  ever 
shall,  rest. 

Social  and  political  justice,  then,  advances  by 
fits  and  starts,  through  ideas — children  of  the 
one  great  idea  of  Harmony — which  are  suggested 
now  by  one,  now  by  another,  section  or  phase  of 
national  life.  The  process  is  like  the  construc- 
tion and  shaping  of  a  work  of  art.  For  an  artist 
is  ever  receiving  vague  impressions  from  people 
unconsciously  observed,  from  feelings  uncon- 
sciously experienced,  till  in  good  time  he  dis- 
covers that  he  has  an  idea.  This  idea  is  but  a 
generalisation  or  harmonious  conception  derived 
subconsciously  from  these  vague  impressions. 
Being  moved  to  embody  that  idea,  he  at  once 
begins  groping  back  to,  and  gathering  in,  those 
very  types  and  experiences  from  which  he  de- 
rived this  general  notion,  in  order  adequately  to 
shape  the  vehicle — his  picture,  his  poem,  his  novel 
— which  shall  carry  his  idea  forth  to  the  world. 

So  in  social  and  political  progress.  The  exi- 
gencies and  inequalities  of  existing  social  life 
produce  a  crop  of  impressions  on  certain  recep- 
tive minds,  which  suddenly  burst  into  flower  in 
the  form  of  ideas.     The  minds  in  which  these 

169 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

abstractions  or  ideas  have  flowered  seek  then 
to  burgeon  them  forth,  and  their  method  of  do- 
ing so  is  to  bring  to  public  notice  those  exigencies 
and  inequalities  which  were  the  original  fuel  of 
their  ideas.  In  this  way  is  the  seed  of  an  idea 
spread  among  a  community.  But  wherever 
the  seed  of  an  idea  falls,  it  has  to  struggle  up 
through  layers  of  prejudice  to  overcome  the  rule 
of  force  and  expediency;  and  if  this  idea,  this 
generalisation  from  social  exigencies  or  inequali- 
ties, be  petty,  retrograde,  or  distorted,  it  with- 
ers and  dies  during  the  struggle.  If,  on  the  other 
hand,  it  be  large,  consonant  with  the  future,  and 
of  true  promise,  it  holds  fast  and  spreads. 

Now,  one  may  very  justly  say  that  this  is  all 
a  platitudinal  explanation  of  the  crude  process 
of  social  and  political  development.  In  taking  a 
given  idea,  such  as  the  full  emancipation  of  women, 
the  fight  only  begins  to  rage  round  the  question 
whether  that  idea  is  in  fact  holding  fast  and  spread- 
ing, and,  if  so,  whether  the  community  is,  or  is 
not  yet  sufficiently  permeated  with  the  idea  to  be 
safely  entrusted  with  its  fulfilment.  None  the  less 
must  it  be  borne  in  mind,  that  if  this  idea  can  be 
proved  to  be  surely  spreading,  it  must  be  an  idea 
emanating  from  the  root  divinity  in  things,  from 
the  overmastering  principle  of  Equity,  and  sure 
of  ultimate  fulfilment;    and,  the  only  question 

170 


"GENTLES,  LET  US  REST!" 

will  then  be,  exactly  how  long  the  rule  of  ex- 
pediency and  force  may  advisably  postpone  its 
fulfilment. 

Now,  in  order  to  discover  whether  the  idea 
of  the  full  emancipation  of  women  is  in  accord 
with  the  great  principle  of  Equity,  it  will  be 
necessary,  first,  to  show  the  present  inferiority 
of  woman's  political  and  social  position;  secondly, 
to  consider  the  essential  reason  of  that  inferior- 
ity; and,  thirdly,  to  see  whether  the  facts  and 
figures  of  the  movement  toward  the  removal  of 
that  inferiority  clearly  prove  that  the  idea  has 
long  been  holding  fast  and  spreading. 

To  show,  however,  that  the  present  political 
and  social  position  of  women  in  England  is  not 
equal  to  that  of  men,  it  will  certainly  suffice  to 
state  two  admitted  facts:  Women  have  not  the 
political  vote.  Women,  who  can  be  divorced  for 
one  offence,  must,  before  they  obtain  divorce, 
prove  two  kinds  of  offence  against  their  husbands. 

And  to  ascertain  the  essential  reason  of  this 
present  inferiority,  we  need  hardly  go  beyond 
the  ground  facts  of  difference  between  men  and 
women  already  mentioned: 

Women  are  not  physically  as  strong  as  men. 

Men  are  never  mothers. 

Women  are  not  warriors. 

From  these  ground  facts  readily  admitted  by 

171 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

all,  the  reason  for  the  present  inferiority  of  wom- 
en's position  emerges  clear  and  unmistakable: 
Women  are  weaker  than  men.  They  are  weaker 
because  they  are  not  in  general  built  so  strongly; 
because  they  have  to  bear  and  to  rear  children; 
because  they  are  unarmed.  There  is  no  getting 
away  from  it,  they  are  weaker;  and  one  cannot 
doubt  for  a  moment  that  their  inferior  position 
is  due  to  this  weakness.  But — so  runs  an  imme- 
morial argument — however  equal  their  opportu- 
nities might  be,  women  will  never  be  as  strong  as 
men!  Why,  then,  for  sentimental  reasons,  dis- 
turb the  present  order  of  things,  why  equalise 
those  opportunities  ?  This  is  the  plea  which  was 
used  before  married  women  were  allowed  separate 
property,  before  the  decision  in  Regina  versus 
Jackson,  which  forbade  a  husband  to  hold  his 
wife  prisoner.  The  argument,  in  fact,  of  expedi- 
ency and  force. 

Now  there  are  no  finer  statements  of  the  case 
for  the  full  emancipation  of  women  than  Mill's 
"Subjection  of  Women,"  and  Miss  Jane  Harri- 
son's essay,  entitled:  "Homo  Sum."  The  rea- 
sonings in  the  former  work  are  too  well-known, 
but  to  the  main  thesis  of  "Homo  Sum"  allusion 
must  here  be  made.  The  most  common,  per- 
haps most  telling  plea  against  raising  the  social 
and  political  status  of  women  to  a  level  with 

172 


"GENTLES,   LET  US  REST!" 

that  of  men,  is  this:  Men  and  women  are  al- 
ready equal,  but  in  separate  spheres  of  activity. 
The  difference  between  their  physical  conforma- 
tion and  functions  underlies  everything  in  the 
lives  of  both.  The  province  and  supremacy  of 
women  are  in  the  home;  the  province  and  su- 
premacy of  men  in  the  State.  Why  seek  to 
alter  what  Nature  has  ordained?  A  plea,  in 
fact,  which  glorifies  sex  qua  sex. 

But  the  writer  of  "Homo  Sum"  is  at  pains 
to  show  that  "the  splendid  and  vital  instinct  of 
sex,"  with  all  its  "singular  power  of  interpene- 
trating and  reinforcing  other  energies,"  is  in  es- 
sence egoistic,  exclusive,  anti-social;  and  that 
besides  and  beyond  being  men  and  women,  we 
are  all  human  beings.  "The  whole  women's 
movement,"  the  writer  says,  "is  just  the  learn- 
ing of  that  lesson.  It  is  not  an  attempt  to  arro- 
gate man's  prerogative  of  manhood;  it  is  not 
even  an  attempt  to  assert  and  emphasise  wom- 
an's privilege  of  womanhood;  it  is  simply  the 
demand  that  in  the  life  of  woman,  as  in  the  life 
of  man,  space  and  liberty  shall  be  found  for  a 
thing  bigger  than  either  manhood  or  woman- 
hood— for  humanity." 

In  fact  the  splendid  instinct  of  sex — for  all  its 
universality,  for  all  that  through  and  by  it  life 
is  perpetuated,  for  all  its  power  of  bringing  de- 

173 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

light,  and  of  revealing  the  heights  and  depths 
of  human  emotion — is  still  essentially  an  agent 
of  the  rule  of  force.  We  cannot  but  perceive 
that  there  is  in  both  men  and  women  something 
more  exalted  and  impersonal,  akin  to  the  su- 
preme principle  of  Equity,  to  the  divinity  in 
things;  and  that  this  something  keeps  men  and 
women  together,  as  strongly,  as  inevitably,  as 
sex  keeps  them  apart.  What  is  all  the  effort  of 
civilisation  but  the  gradual  fortifying  of  that 
higher  part  of  us,  the  exaltation  of  the  principle 
of  justice;  the  chaining  of  the  principle  of  Force? 
The  full  emancipation  of  women  would  be  one 
more  step  in  the  march  of  our  civilisation;  a 
sign  that  this  nation  was  still  serving  human- 
ity, still  trying  to  be  gentle  and  just.  For  if  it 
has  ceased  to  serve  humanity,  we  must  surely 
pray  that  the  waters  may  rise  over  this  island, 
and  that  she  may  go  down  all  standing ! 

If  then,  women's  position  is  inferior  to  men's, 
if  the  essential  reason  of  this  inferiority  is  her 
weakness,  or,  in  other  words,  the  still  unchecked 
dominance  of  force,  to  what  extent  do  the  facts 
and  figures  of  the  movement  toward  removing 
the  inferiority  of  women's  position  prove  that 
the  idea  of  the  full  emancipation  of  women  is, 
not  petty  and  false,  withering  and  dying,  but 
large  and  true,  holding  fast  and  spreading? 

174 


"GENTLES,  LET  US  REST!" 

In  1866,  a  petition  for  the  vote,  signed  by 
1,499  women,  was  presented  to  Parliament  by- 
John  Stuart  Mill. 

In  1873,  petitions  for  the  suffrage  from  11,000 
women  were  presented  to  Gladstone  and  Dis- 
raeli. 

In  1896,  an  appeal  was  made  to  members  of 
Parliament  by  257,000  women  of  all  classes  and 
parties. 

In  1897,  1,285  petitions  in  favour  of  a  Wom- 
en's Suffrage  Bill  were  presented  to  Parliament, 
being  800  more  petitions  than  those  presented 
in  favour  of  any  other  bill. 

In  1867,  Mill's  amendment  to  substitute  "per- 
son" for  "man"  in  the  Representation  of  the 
People  Act  was  rejected  by  a  majority  of  121. 

In  1908,  Stanger's  Bill  to  enable  women  to 
vote  on  the  same  terms  as  men  passed  its  second 
reading  by  a  majority  of  179. 

In  1893,  1894,  and  1895,  the  franchise  was 
granted  to  women  in  New  Zealand,  Colorado, 
South  Australia,  and  Utah. 

In  1900,  1902,  1903,  1905,  1908,  and  1910,  the 
franchise  was  granted  to  women  in  Western 
Australia,  New  South  Wales,  Tasmania,  Finland, 
Norway,  Victoria,  and  the  State  of  Washington. 

In  1902,  a  petition  was  signed  by  750  women 
graduates. 

175 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

In  1906,  a  petition  was  signed  by  1;530  women 
graduates. 

In  1910,  the  membership  of  the  various 
Women's  Suffrage  Societies,  and  of  bodies  of 
men  and  women  who  have  declared  in  favour 
of  the  idea  of  women's  suffrage,  is  estimated  by 
some  at  over  half  a  million — a  figure  subject, 
no  doubt,  to  great  deduction;  but  certainly  also 
to  very  great  addition  for  sympathisers  who 
belong  to  no  such  societies  or  bodies. 

These,  briefly,  are  the  main  facts  and  figures. 
From  them  but  one  conclusion  can  be  drawn. 
The  idea  of  the  full  emancipation  of  women  hav- 
ing fulfilled  the  requirements  of  steady  growth 
over  a  long  space  of  years,  and  giving  every 
promise  of  further  steady  growth,  is  in  accord 
with  the  principle  of  Equity;  intrinsically  just. 
How  long  will  it  remain  possible  in  the  service  of 
expediency  and  force  to  refuse  to  this  idea  its 
complete  fruition;  how  long  will  it  be  wise?  For 
when  the  limit  of  wisdom  is  reached,  expediency 
has  obviously  become  inexpedient,  and  force  un- 
worthy. 

When  out  of  670  members  of  a  House  of  Com- 
mons 400  have  given  pledges  to  support  wom- 
en's suffrage;  when  a  measure  for  the  enfran- 
chisement of  women  on  the  same  terms  as  men 
has  passed  its  second  reading  by  a  majority  of 

176 


"GENTLES,  LET  US  REST!" 

179,  and  in  face  of  this  declaration  of  sentiment 
Government  has  refused  to  afford  facilities  for 
carrying  it  into  law,   there  must  obviously  be 
some  definite  hostile  factor  in  the  political  equa- 
tion.   In  a  country  governed  as  ours  is,  it  is  but 
natural  that  those  who  are,  so  to  speak,  trustees 
for  its  policy,  should  not  look  with  favour  on 
any  measure  which  may  in  then-  opinion  defi- 
nitely set  back  that  policy,  or  affect  it  in  some 
way  which  they  cannot  with  sufficient  clearness 
foresee.    The  cause  of  women,  in  fact,  is  a  lost 
dog  owned  by  neither  party,  distrusted  by  both. 
While  there  is  yet  danger  of  being  bitten,  each 
watches  that  dog  carefully,  holding  out  a  more 
or  less  friendly  hand.    But  when  the  door  of  the 
house  is  safely  closed,  she  may  howl  her  heart 
out  in  the  cold.    The  press,  too,  with  few  excep- 
tions, is  committed  to  one  or  other  of  these  par- 
ties.   To  the  press,  the  cause  of  women  is  a  home- 
less wanderer  to  whom  it  is  proper  to  give  casual 
alms,  but  who  can  hardly  be  brought  in  to  the 
fire,  lest  she  take  up  the  room  of  the  children 
of  the  house.    And  so  out  of  the  despair  caused 
by  this  lost  drifting  in  a  vicious   circle  out  of 
a  position  created  by  party  expediency,  the  in- 
evitable has  come  to  pass.     Militant  suffragism 
has  arisen — ironically,  and,  to  my  thinking,  re- 
grettably, since  the  real  spiritual  significance  and 

177 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

true  national  benefit  of  the  full  emancipation  of 
women  will  lie  in  the  victoiy  of  justice  over  force; 
and  to  employ  what  must  needs  be  inferior  force 
to  achieve  the  victoiy  of  justice  over  force;  is  not 
only  futile,  but  so  befogging  to  the  whole  matter 
that  the  essential  issue  of  Equity  is  more  than 
ever  hidden  from  the  mind  of  the  public.  Mili- 
tancy may  have  served  certain  purposes,  but  it 
has  added  one  more  element  of  fixity  to  an  im- 
passe already  existing,  for  the  woman  of  action 
is  saying,  "Until  you  give  me  the  vote  I  shall 
act  like  this";  and  the  man  of  action  is  answer- 
ing her:  "So  long  as  you  act  like  that  I  shall 
not  give  you  the  vote.  To  yield  to  you  would 
be  to  admit  the  efficacy  of  threats  and  establish 
a  bad  precedent." 

None  the  less,  human  nature  being  what  it  is, 
militancy  was  inevitable,  and  the  wise  will  look 
at  the  situation,  not  as  it  was  or  might  be,  but 
as  it  is.  We  must  consider  what  effect  that 
situation  is  having  on  the  national  character. 
Every  little  outrage  committed  on  men  by 
women  is  met  by  another  committed  on  women 
by  men;  and  each  time  one  of  these  mutual  out- 
rages takes  place,  tens  of  thousands  of  minds  in 
this  country  are  blunted  in  that  most  sensitive 
quality — gentleness.  It  is  idle  to  pretend  that 
women  have  not  stood,  and  do  not  still  stand,  to 

178 


"GENTLES,  LET  US  REST!" 

men  as  the  chief  reason  for  being  gentle;  that 
men  have  not,  and  do  not  still  stand  to  women, 
in  the  same  capacity.  By  every  little  mutual 
outrage,  then,  the  beneficence  of  sex  is  being 
weakened,  its  maleficence  awakened,  throughout 
the  land.  And  the  harm  which  is  thus  being  done 
is  so  impalpable,  so  subtle,  as  to  be  beyond  the 
power  of  most  to  notice  at  all,  and  surely  beyond 
the  power  of  statesmen  to  assess.  That  is  the 
mischief.  The  scent  is  stealing  away  out  of  the 
flower  of  our  urbanity.  It  will  be  long  before  the 
gardeners  discover  how  odourless  and  arid  that 
flower  has  become. 

For  it  is  not  so  much  the  action  of  the  mili- 
tant women  themselves,  nor  that  of  those  who 
are  suppressing  them,  which  is  doing  this  subtle 
harm.  It  is  the  effect  of  this  scrimmage  on  the 
spectators;  the  coarsening,  and  hardening,  and 
general  embitterment;  the  secret  glorification 
of  the  worst  side  of  the  sex  instinct;  the  con- 
stant exaltation  of  the  rule  of  force;  the  rapid 
growth  of  a  ranking  sense  of  injustice  among 
tens  of  thousands  of  women.  To  say  that  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  of  women  are  opposed,  or 
indifferent,  to  the  full  emancipation  of  their  sex, 
is  not,  in  truth,  to  say  very  much.  No  civilis- 
ing movement  was  ever  brought  to  fruition  save 
in  the  face  of  the  indifference  or  opposition  of 

179 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

the  majority.  What  proportion  of  agricultural 
labourers  were  actively  concerned  to  win  for 
themselves  the  vote?  How  small  a  fraction  of 
the  people  actively  demanded  free  education? 
But  when  these  privileges  were  won,  what  num- 
ber of  those  for  whom  they  were  won  would  have 
been  willing  to  resign  them  ?  If  women  were  fully 
emancipated  to-morrow,  many  would  certainly  re- 
sent what  they  would  deem  a  blow  at  the  in- 
fluence and  power  already  wielded  by  them  in 
virtue  of  their  sex.  But  in  two  years'  time  how 
many  would  be  willing  to  surrender  their  free- 
dom? As  certainly,  not  ten  in  a  hundred!  To 
compare  the  disapproval  of  women  raised  against 
their  wills  to  a  state  of  emancipation  in  which 
they  can  remain  inactive  if  they  like,  with  the 
bitter  resentment  spreading  like  slow  poison  in 
the  veins  of  those  who  fruitlessly  demand  eman- 
cipation, is  to  compare  the  energy  of  vanishing 
winter  snow  with  that  of  the  spring  sun  which 
melts   it. 

In  an  age  when  spirituality  has  ever  a  more 
desperate  struggle  to  maintain  hold  at  all  against 
the  inroads  of  materialism,  any  increase  of  bit- 
terness in  the  national  life,  any  loss  of  gentle- 
ness, aspiration,  and  mutual  trust  between  the 
sexes,  however  silent,  secret,  and  unmeasur- 
able,  is  a  very  serious  thing.    Justice,  neglected, 

180 


" GENTLES,  LET  US  REST!" 

works  her  own  insidious  revenge.  Every  month, 
every  year,  the  germs  of  bitterness  and  brutal- 
ity will  be  spreading.  If  any  think  that  this 
people  has  gentleness  to  spare,  and  can  afford 
to  tamper  with  the  health  of  its  spirit,  they  are 
mistaken.  If  any  think  that  repression  can  put  an 
end  to  this  aspiration — again  they  are  mistaken. 
The  idea  of  the  full  emancipation  of  women  is  so 
rooted  that  nothing  can  now  uproot  it. 

But  apart  from  the  political  impasse,  there 
are  those,  who,  satisfied  that  women  have  not 
the  political  aptitude  of  men,  are  chiefly  opposed 
to  the  granting  of  the  vote  for  fear  that  it  will 
come  to  mean  the  return  of  women  to  Parlia- 
ment. Now,  if  their  conviction  regarding  the 
inferiority  of  women's  political  capacity  be  sound 
— as  I  for  one,  speaking  generally,  am  inclined  to 
believe — there  is  no  danger  of  women  being  re- 
turned to  Parliament  save  in  such  small  num- 
bers as  to  make  no  matter.  If  it  be  unsound — 
if  the  political  capacity  of  woman  be  equal  to 
man's — it  is  time  Parliament  were  reinforced  by 
women's  presence.  New  waters  soon  find  their 
level.  Nor  are  such  as  distrust  the  political 
capacities  of  women  qualified  to  prophesy  a 
flood.  To  debar  women  for  fear  of  their  com- 
petition is  a  policy  of  little  spirit,  and  not  one 
that  the  men  of  this   country  will   consciously 

181 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

adopt;  unless  we  have  indeed  lost  the  fire  of  our 
fathers.  There  are  many,  too,  who  believe  that 
the  granting  of  the  vote  to  women  will  increase 
the  emotional  element  in  an  electorate  whose 
emotional  side  they  already  distrust,  and  thereby 
endanger  our  relations  with  foreign  Powers.  But 
it  has  yet  to  be  proved  that  women  are,  in  a 
wide  sense  of  the  word,  more  emotional  than  men; 
and,  even  conceding  that  they  are,  why  forget 
that  they  will  bring  to  the  consideration  of  in- 
ternational matters  the  solid  reinforcement  of 
two  qualities — the  first,  a  practical  domestic 
sense  lacking  to  men,  and  likely  to  foster  na- 
tional reluctance  to  plunge  into  wild-cat  wars;  the 
second,  a  greater  faculty  for  self-sacrifice,  tending 
to  fortify  national  determination  to  persist  in  a 
war  once  undertaken.  It  is  well  known  that 
during  the  American  Civil  War  the  women  of 
the  Southern  States  displayed  a  spirit  of  resis- 
tance even  more  heroic  than  that  of  their  men- 
folk. To  retain  women  in  their  present  state  of 
social  and  political  inferiority  for  reasons  which 
are  so  debatable,  savours,  surely,  somewhat  of  the 
sultanic.  We  have,  in  fact,  yet  to  imbibe  the 
spirit  of  Mill's  wisest  saying:  "Among  all  the 
lessons  which  men  require  for  carrying  on  the 
struggle  against  the  evident  imperfections  of  their 
lot  on  earth,  there  is  no  lesson  which  they  more 

182 


"GENTLES,  LET  US  REST!" 

need  than  not  to  add  to  the  evils  which  nature 
inflicts,  by  their  jealous  and  prejudiced  restric- 
tions on  one  another." 

In  fine,  out  of  the  practical  perplexities  brood- 
ing over  this  whole  matter,  there  is  no  way  save 
by  resort  to  the  first  principles  of  gentility.  It 
has  been  uncontrovertibly  established  that  there 
is  in  this  country  a  great  and  ever-increasing 
body  of  women  suffering  from  a  bitter  sense  of 
injustice;  what  course,  then,  compatible  with 
true  gentility,  is  left  open  to  us  men  ?  Our  whole 
social  life  is  in  essence  but  a  long,  slow  striving 
for  the  victory  of  justice  over  force;  and  this 
demand  of  our  women  for  full  emancipation  is 
but  a  sign  of  that  striving.  Are  we  not  bound 
in  honour  to  admit  this  simple  fact?  Shall  we 
not  at  last  give  fulfilment  to  this  idea — with  the 
due  caution  that  should  mark  all  political  ex- 
periment? Has  not,  in  truth,  the  time  come  for 
us  to  say:  From  this  resistance  to  the  claims  of 
Equity;  from  this  bitter  and  ungracious  conflict 
with  those  weaker  than  ourselves;  from  this  slow 
poisoning  of  the  well-springs  of  our  national 
courtesy,  and  kindliness,  and  sense  of  fair  play: 
"Gentles,  let  us  rest!" 


183 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

II 
APPEAL  TO  THE  PRESS 

(A  Letter  to  the  Daily  News,  1911) 

I  write  as  a  supporter  of  woman's  suffrage, 
but  not  of  militant  suffragism.  Whenever  I  have 
remonstrated  with  a  militant  suffragist  I  have 
received  this  answer: 

"We  could  not  keep  the  movement  before  the 
eyes  of  the  public  without  militant  tactics,  be- 
cause the  papers,  with  two  or  three  exceptions, 
would  not  report  peaceful  work.  For  this  rea- 
son we  adopted  our  methods,  and  the  event  has 
justified  us.  We  have  advanced  the  cause — 
simply  by  forcing  it  on  people's  attention  in  the 
only  way  open  to  us — more  in  the  last  three 
years  than  those  who  pursued  peaceful  methods 
had  done  in  the  last  forty." 

Whatever  may  now  be  the  feelings  and  in- 
tentions of  the  militant  suffragists,  this  answer 
did  undoubtedly  set  forth  the  true  reason  for 
the  inception  of  militant  tactics. 

All  political  and  social  movements  in  this 
country  depend  for  vitality  on  catching  the  eye 
and  the  thought  of  the  community.  And  we 
may  draw  one  of  two  alternative  morals  from 
that  prolonged  silence  of  the  press  toward  wom- 

184 


"GENTLES,   LET  US  REST!" 

an's  suffrage,  which  originally  brought  about  the 
campaign  of  violence:  Either,  that  men,  hav- 
ing possession  of  the  organs  of  public  opinion, 
deliberately  kept  them  closed  to  the  discus- 
sion of  the  political  rights  of  women — a  supposi- 
tion I  should  prefer  not  to  entertain.  Or,  that 
reports  of  violence  and  sensationalism  are  more 
sought  after  than  tales  of  reason  and  sobriety! 
Whichever  the  moral  drawn,  it  is  very  discreditable 
to  public  feeling  in  this  country. 

Is  it  too  late  for  those  who  are  responsible  for 
the  press  to  take  the  lead  in  removing  such  a 
stigma?  It  is  lugubrious  that,  in  our  England 
of  free  speech  and  fair  play,  in  this  nation  hith- 
erto supposed  to  excel  in  political  sense,  it  should 
have  been  found  necessary  to  advocate  and  ad- 
vertise by  mere  sensationalism  a  political  and 
social  movement  of  more  wide-reaching  and  uni- 
versal nature  than  any  now  before  the  public; 
a  movement  of  such  epoch-making  character 
that  few  people  have  at  present  grasped  its  real 
significance.  Surely  it  is  important  that  the 
people  of  this  country  should  be  educated  in  the 
reason  and  the  rights  of  a  question  such  as  this. 
But  in  order  that  they  may  be  so  educated  it  is 
necessaiy  that  they  should  read,  not  the  account 
of  how  "So-and-so's  windows  were  broken,"  or 
of  how  "Such  an  one  was  arrested,"  but  argu- 

185 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

ments  presented  in  speech  and  writing  for  and 
against  the  suffrage. 

The  extent  to  which  the  formation  of  public 
opinion  on  any  political  measure  depends  on 
the  publication  in  the  press  of  reason,  pro  and 
con,  can  be  seen  from  the  growth  of  the  Tariff 
Reform  party,  which  a  few  years  ago  was  a 
negligible  faction.  The  imminence  and  gravity 
of  this  issue  of  woman's  suffrage  can  no  longer 
be  denied.  It  has  to  be  faced.  It  will  have 
to  be  decided.  Does  the  press  of  this  country 
wish  it  to  be  decided  by  an  electorate  utterly 
unversed  in  its  merits  and  demerits?  Would 
the  press  of  this  country  wish  any  big  political 
or  social  measure  to  be  so  decided?  Is  it  just, 
generous,  or  politic  that,  when  women  try  by 
peaceful  and  constitutional  means  to  promulgate 
their  cause,  there  should  be  silence?  If  there 
had  not  been  this  silence,  militant  suffragism 
would  never  have  been  born.  By  the  removal 
of  this  silence  militant  suffragism  may  still  be 
helped  toward  a  natural  death. 

I  appeal  to  all  editors  (whether  friends  or 
enemies  of  the  movement),  who  have  already 
shown  themselves  alive  to  what  is  rapidly  be- 
coming the  desperate  importance  of  this  issue, 
to  combine,  and  advocate  an  alteration  of  the 
general  press  policy — to  advocate  the  throwing 

186 


"GENTLES,  LET  US  REST!" 

open  of  all  journals  to  fair  and  full  report,  not 
of  the  sensational,  but  of  the  reasonable,  sides, 
for  and  against,  of  woman's  suffrage.  For, 
whether  consciously  or  unconsciously,  the  general 
press  policy  has  hitherto  been  most  unfortunate, 
and  is  fast  contributing  to  the  growth  of  a  bit- 
ter feeling  between  the  sexes,  in  the  last  degree 
noxious  to  the  national  life. 


187 


ON  SOCIAL  UNREST 

(A  Paper  in  The  Daily  Mail,  1912) 

"This  is  a  psychological  question,  a  matter  of 
mental  states."  (H.  G.  Wells.)  It  is.  And  in 
examining  these  mental  states  there  are  two, 
out  of  many  factors,  on  which  I  do  not  think 
too  much  emphasis  can  be  laid,  not  only  because 
they  are  in  themselves  vital  to  the  evil,  but  be- 
cause they  both  arise  from  the  same  prime  under- 
lying deficiency  in  our  national  life. 

The  first  is  the  influence  on  society  at  large 
produced  by  the  great  and  rapid  growth  of  the 
fiduciary  element  in  the  conduct  of  commercial 
enterprise  and  landed  estates.  The  agent,  the 
director,  the  manager,  the  trustee  have  almost 
entirely  displaced  the  old-time  owner,  merchant, 
and  manufacturer,  who  did  business  by  and  for 
themselves. 

A  class  has  been  created  who,  already  in  a 
state  of  professional  altruism,  are  impervious, 
and  on  the  face  of  it  rightly  impervious,  to  al- 
truism of  any  other  kind. 

What  large  business  nowadays  is  not  con- 
ducted as  a  Limited  Company  by  a  board  of 

188  ' 


ON  SOCIAL   UNREST 

directors  appointed  and  paid  by  the  sharehold- 
ers as  trustees  to  produce  for  them  a  maximum 
of  profit?  What  large  estate  is  not  managed  by 
a  paid  agent  on  the  same  principle?  And,  how- 
ever generous  our  aspirations,  which  of  us  does 
not  know  the  deflecting  power  of  trusteeship, 
rigidified,  as  it  is,  by  law  and  by  the  sense  that 
we  are  paid  for  the  performance  of  a  job  inimi- 
cal to  generosity  ?  True — the  rates  of  wages  and 
of  rent  come  not  under  rules  but  under  the 
broad  heading  of  policy;  and,  in  deep  reality,  I 
suspect  it  to  be  equally  true  that  the  maximum 
of  generosity  ministers  in  the  long  run  to  the 
maximum  of  stability  and  profit;  nevertheless, 
there  can  be  no  doubt  whatever  that  the  trustee 
system  not  only  befogs  and  deadens  the  human 
relationship  between  employer  and  employed,  but 
affords  an  overwhelming  support  to  our  natural 
instinct  to  take  the  immediate  view  and  line  of 
least  resistance. 

Broadly  speaking,  where  there  is  trusteeship, 
as  trusteeship  is  now  understood,  there  is  no 
wide  view  of  the  relation  of  Capital  to  Labour 
in  the  light  of  the  good  of  Society  as  a  whole; 
there  is  only  a  faithful,  cold-blooded,  purblind 
service  for  the  benefit  of  a  cestui  que  trust,  who 
is  himself  freed  from  a  sense  of  personal  respon- 
sibility and  from  all  apparent  need  for  a  wide 

189 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

and  human  outlook.  The  trustee  system,  if  not 
already,  will  soon  be,  universal,  and  I  see  no 
means  of  counteracting  its  secret,  dangerous, 
and  irritating  effect  on  the  mind  of  Labour, 
save  by  such  process  of  education  as  shall  soak 
the  spirit  of  the  prosperous  classes  with  an  alto- 
gether larger  and  saner  feeling  of  the  funda- 
mental unity  and  interdependence  of  Society, 
with  a  good-will  so  vastly  increased  that  the 
shareholder  and  cestui  que  trust  shall  no  longer 
require  the  director  or  trustee  to  consider  them 
and  them  alone,  but  bid  him  instead  consider 
equally  the  interests  of  the  employed.  Such  a 
mood  of  altruism  is  now,  roughly  speaking,  ab- 
sent from  the  minds  of  the  prosperous  classes; 
and  to  attain  to  it  is  a  consummation  that  I  fear 
will  never  come  about  under  our  present  system 
of  education. 

The  second  influence  on  which  I  would  lay 
great  emphasis  is  the  state  of  mind  produced  by 
our  system  of  education  in  the  young  of  the  pros- 
perous classes  at  our  private  and  public  schools, 
and,  to  a  less  extent,  at  our  universities.  Before 
dwelling  on  this  let  me  suggest  two  truths.  In  life, 
where  a  fortunate  person  is  brought  into  contact 
with  one  less  fortunate,  the  first  step  toward 
cordial  relationship  must  obviously  come  from 
the  fortunate.    For  human  nature  is  happily  so 

190 


ON  SOCIAL  UNREST 

constituted  that  the  less  fortunate  feels  ashamed 
to  make  advances  which,  liable  to  misconstruc- 
tion, are  not  compatible  with  self-respect.  Every- 
man of  any  worth  can  test,  is  testing,  this  truth 
continually  in  his  own  life;  it  cannot  be  doubted. 
Again,  where  advances  are  made  by  the  fortu- 
nate from  sheer  friendliness  and  without  ulterior 
motive,  they  most  certainly  evoke  response  in 
the  same  friendly  spirit  from  all  save  exceptional 
churls. 

Now,  since  these  primary  truths  concerning 
human  nature  underlie  the  whole  question  of 
Labour  Unrest,  it  becomes  of  the  first  impor- 
tance to  consider  how  far  the  young  of  the  pros- 
perous classes  are  made  actively  familiar  with 
them.  How  far  are  the  legions  at  our  private 
and  public  schools  (those  legions  from  whom  the 
ranks  of  Capital  are,  in  the  main,  recruited)  made 
to  understand,  and — more  than  understand — to 
jeel  that  they  are  fortunate,  that  Labour  is  less 
fortunate,  that  they  will  have  to  live  their  lives 
in  interdependence  with  Labour,  and  that  if  they 
do  not  make — out  of  a  free  and  fine  heart  make 
— the  first  advances  to  good-fellowship  with  less 
fortunate  Labour,  those  advances  can — by  a 
law,  and  a  good  law,  of  human  nature — never  be 
made?  How  far  are  they  at  present  brought  up 
to  see  this?    I  would  go  so  far  as  to  say — hardly 

191 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

at  all.  In  my  day  at  a  public  school — and  I  have 
no  reason  at  all  to  hope  that,  whatever  be  the 
exceptions,  the  general  rule  has  greatly  changed — 
the  Universe  was  divided  into  ourselves  and 
"outsiders,"  "bounders,"  "chaws,"  "cads,"  or 
whatever  more  or  less  offensive  name  best  seemed 
to  us  to  characterise  those  less  fortunate  than 
ourselves.  It  is  true  that  we  applied  the  name 
mainly  to  the  lower  ranks  of  Capital  rather  than 
to  actual  Labour,  but  this  was  only  because  we 
lived  so  far  away  from  industrial  workers  that 
we  never  even  thought  of  them.  Such  working; 
folk  as  we  actually  came  into  personal  contact 
with  we  never  dreamed  of  associating  with  any 
such  offensive  thought  in  our  minds  or  speech  on 
our  tongues;  but,  generically,  the  working  man 
did  not  exist  for  us  except  as  a  person  outside, 
remote,  and  almost  inimical.  From  our  homes, 
touched  already  by  this  class  feeling,  caught  up 
from  political  talk  by  chance  overheard,  we  went 
to  private  schools,  where  the  teaching  of  man- 
ners, mainly  under  clerical  supervision,  effectually 
barred  us  from  any  contaminating  influence;  so 
that  if  by  chance  we  encountered  the  "  lower  class  " 
boy  we  burned  to  go  for  him  and  correct  his 
"cheek."  Thence  we  were  passed  into  the  great 
"Caste"  factory,  a  public  school,  where  the  feel- 
ing became,  by  mere  process  of  being  left  to  itself, 
as  set  and  hard  as  iron.    It  is  true  that  a  level- 

192 


ON   SOCIAL  UNREST 

ling  process  went  on  among  the  boys  themselves, 
so  that  a  duke's  son  was  no  more  accounted  of 
than  a  stock-broker's;  but,  nevertheless,  all  learned 
to  consider  themselves  'the  elect.'  Of  ten  public- 
school  boys,  seven  have  come  from  "caste "-in- 
fected homes  and  private  schools,  and  have  ac- 
tive prejudice  already.  The  remaining  three  may 
still  be  open-minded  or  indifferent;  of  these,  two 
will  infallibly  follow  the  sway  of  the  herd  in- 
stinct; one  may  perhaps  develop  a  line  of  his 
own,  or  adhere  to  the  influence  of  a  home  inim- 
ical to  "caste,"  and  become  a  "smug"  or  Radi- 
cal. In  result,  failing  definite,  sustained  effort 
to  break  up  a  narrow  "caste"  feeling,  the  public 
school  presents  a  practically  solid  phalanx  of  the 
fortunate,  insulated  against  real  knowledge  of, 
or  sympathy  with,  the  less  fortunate.  This  pha- 
lanx marches  out  into  the  professions,  into  busi- 
ness, into  the  universities,  where,  it  is  true,  some 
awaken  to  a  sense  of  wider  values — but  not  too 
many.  From  the  point  of  view  of  any  one  who 
tries  to  see  things  as  they  are,  and  see  them  as 
a  whole,  there  is  something  terrific  about  this 
automatic  "caste"  moulding  of  the  young.  And 
in  the  present  condition  of  our  country  it  is  folly, 
and  dangerous  folly,  to  blink  it.* 

For  all  my  love  of  my  old  school,  for  all  my 

*  Many  think  the  war  will  alter  all  this.     I  only  wish  I  did. 
— J.  G. 

193 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

realisation  of  the  fact  that  her  training  equips 
her  children  with  certain  qualities  invaluable  to 
public  life  and  public  service,  I  do  feel  that  she 
and  all  her  sisters  are  disserving  the  national 
welfare  by  refraining  from  really  active  and  reso- 
lute attempts  to  destroy  the  bad  side  of  "caste" 
feeling.  They  let  it  grow  of  its  own  momentum 
through  the  herd  instinct  till  it  blinds  the  eyes 
and  blunts  the  feelings  of  those  who,  being  for- 
tunate, must  by  the  laws  of  human  nature  make 
the  first  advances  toward  friendship  with  the 
less  fortunate,  if  those  advances  are  to  be  made 
at  all;  and  must  make  them,  not  because  to 
neglect  them  is  dangerous,  but  out  of  brotherly 
feeling  and  a  real  hearty  wish  to  give  all  the  help 
they  can  to  such  as  are  not  so  lucky  as  them- 
selves. I  do  not  mean  that  our  public  schools 
and  universities  are  consciously  refraining.  They 
are  not,  and  their  very  unconsciousness  is  half 
the  danger.  And  I  do  not  say  that  there  are  no 
masters  or  dons,  conscious  of  the  danger  and  try- 
ing their  best  to  remove  it,  but  I  do  say  there 
are  not  nearly  enough.  A  few  swallows  do  not 
make  a  summer. 

Since,  in  relation  to  the  foregoing,  four  objec- 
tions, at  all  events,  are  bound  to  be  made,  let  me 
make  them  myself,  and  answer  them  too.  First, 
it  is  not  the  public  school  and  varsity  man  who 

194 


ON  SOCIAL  UNREST 

is  lacking  in  sympathy  and  good-will  toward  La- 
bour; it  is  the  self-made  Capitalist,  or  the  gram- 
mar-school man.  The  truth  is  that,  with  ex- 
ceptions, they  all  are  lacking.  But  the  defect 
is  more  dangerous  and  insidious  within  "the 
caste"  than  without;  for  not  only  is  "the  caste" 
homogeneous  and  far  more  influential  in  every 
way,  but  it  veils  its  lack  of  sympathy  in  this  very 
pretension  of  having  sympathy.  Next,  it  will  be 
said:  'You  accuse  us  of  lack  of  sympathy!  But 
we  would  gladly  be  sympathetic,  if  they  would 
only  let  us ! '  Now,  this  in  the  main  is  a  perfectly 
genuine  belief  in  members  of  "the  caste"  when 
they  have  once  gone  out  into  life  and  rubbed  off 
the  rawness  of  youthful  hostility  and  prejudice. 
But  it  is  the  genuine  belief  of  people  only  pas- 
sively inclined  to  friendship;  in  other  words,  the 
belief  of  the  fortunate  not  imbued  with  a  spirit 
sufficiently  high  and  generous  to  take,  from  the 
best  motives,  active  steps  toward  friendship  with 
the  less  fortunate. 

Further,  it  will  be  said:  'But  Labour  is  not 
really  less  fortunate  than  ourselves — it  has  free- 
dom from  cares,  responsibilities,  and  expenses, 
such  as  we  can  never  know;  in  fact,  we  are  not 
sure  that  it  is  not  really  the  more  fortunate 
class/  Well !  Apart  from  the  fact  that  not  one 
in  ten  thousand  of  "the  caste"  would  change 

195 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

places  with  an  industrial  worker,  there  is  this 
answer:  'On  your  hypothesis,  evolution,  which 
is  "caste's"  main  justification,  is  absurd  and  our 
system  is  standing  on  its  head.  If,  indeed,  you 
require  Labour  to  consider  itself  at  least  as  for- 
tunate as  yourselves,  you  must  set  to  work  at 
once  and  revalue  everything,  alter  every  present 
ideal  in  your  social  life,  and  annul  the  impor- 
tance of  property.  Are  you  prepared  to  do  this  ? ' 
Finally,  it  will  be  objected:  'It  may  be  as  you 
say,  but  the  evil  is  implicit  and  inevitable,  for 
everything  possible  is  already  done  by  our  edu- 
cational authorities  to  counteract  a  narrow 
"caste"  spirit  and  imbue  the  children  of  the  for- 
tunate with  a  brotherly  feeling  toward  the  less 
fortunate.'  The  answer  to  this  is  simply:  'Has 
everything  been  done?  Has  anything  like  every- 
thing been  done?  For  example,  is  the  need  for 
counteracting  this  narrow  "caste"  spirit  ever 
taken  into  account  in  the  appointment  of  these 
same  educational  authorities?' 

Besides  being  "snobs"  in  the  best  sense  of 
that  word,  boys  are  high-spirited,  generous,  and 
malleable  creatures.  Let  any  fair-minded  man 
of  "the  caste"  ask  himself:  "What  sustained  and 
really  'felt'  effort  did  he  encounter  from  his  own 
teachers  in  school  and  college  days  to  turn  that 
high  spirit,  and  generosity,  and  malleability  of 

196 


ON  SOCIAL  UNREST 

his  into  a  state  of  mind  that  regarded  his  good 
fortune  as  a  thing  to  be  held  in  trust  to  share 
to  the  full  with  the  less  fortunate?  "  A  few  will 
answer  truly:  "Yes,  I  have  met  with  such  effort." 
But  how  few! 

Again,  then,  I  am  brought  to  the  point  of 
saying:  There  is  a  general  absence  of  active  and 
sustained  effort  to  produce  in  the  young  of  the 
prosperous  classes  this  "good-will"  state  of  mind; 
to  change  such  general  absence  of  effort  into  a 
general  presence  of  effort  is  a  consummation  that 
will  never,  I  think,  be  reached  under  our  pres- 
ent system  of  education. 

Both  these  influences,  then,  contributing  to 
Social  Unrest — the  one  produced  by  the  in- 
creasing presence  of  the  fiduciary  element,  and 
the  other  by  the  unchecked  growth  of  a  narrow 
"caste"  spirit — lead  us  to  the  same  prime  under- 
lying deficiency  in  our  national  life:  the  lack  of 
right  purpose  in  our  education.  They  happen 
to  be  both  incident  to  Capital,  but  it  is  probable 
that  influences  incident  to  Labour,  of  which  I 
hesitate  to  speak,  since  I  cannot  from  personal 
experience  and  feeling,  may  also  in  measure  be 
traced  to  the  same  underlying  deficiency  in  our 
education. 

No  national  improvement  can  come  from  out- 
side.    It  must  come  from  within,  from  gradu- 

197 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

ally  improved  feeling  in  the  body  politic.  To 
hope  for  growth  without  this  improvement  is  to 
hope  that  a  man  shall  raise  himself  from  the 
ground  by  the  hair  of  his  own  head.  But  im- 
proved feeling  has  no  chance  of  spreading  through- 
out the  body  politic  without  that  machinery  of 
infection  which  we  know  by  the  name  of  educa- 
tion. Therefore  education  is  the  most  sacred 
concern,  indeed  the  only  hope  of  a  nation. 

How  do  we  now  treat  our  education — this 
sacred  thing,  this  only  hope?  In  regard  to  the 
classes,  its  direction  and  control  are  left  en- 
tirely to  the  haphazard  beck  and  call  of  each 
separate  school  or  college,  without  conformity 
to  or  guidance  from  any  professed  national  aim, 
principle,  or  ideal.  In  regard  to  the  masses,  it 
is  the  concern  of  a  Department  of  State,  just  as 
are  Trade,  the  Post-Office,  or  the  Navy,  and  is 
treated,  not  as  a  spiritual  matter  underlying  all 
else,  but  as  a  material  affair.  The  spiritual  side 
of  education  is  supposed  to  be  the  concern  of 
the  religious  bodies;  but  if  we  are  quite  honest 
we  have  to  confess  that  the  religious  bodies  have 
no  longer  sufficient  hold  on  classes  or  masses  to 
inspire  in  either  such  wide  mutual  good-will  and 
sense  of  service  as  will  forward  any  real  improve- 
ment in  the  relations  between  Capital  and  Labour, 
between  the  fortunate  and  less  fortunate  classes. 

198 


ON  SOCIAL  UNREST 

The  religious  bodies,  let  us  say,  have  tried  their 
best,  but  since  our  last  state  is  worse  than  our 
first,  they  must  be  considered  to  have  failed.  Their 
influence,  indeed,  is  too  incoherent  and  dispersed, 
pervasive  here  and  there,  but  without  either  the 
centrality  or  force  to  promote  in  us  a  great  na- 
tional change  toward  that  essence  of  Christianity 
— mutual  good-will  and  sense  of  service.  There 
is  no  longer,  I  am  afraid,  hope  in  that  direction. 

Deep  down  we  know  all  this,  but  we  have  not 
yet  bestirred  ourselves  to  find  out  what  it  is  that 
we  are  trying  to  do  with  our  civilisation,  or  in- 
deed whether  we  are  trying  to  do  anything  ex- 
cept just  keep  our  heads  above  water  from  hour 
to  hour. 

And  we  have  not  yet  bestirred  ourselves,  partly 
because  we  are  still  breathless  and  uncertain 
after  that  long  and  tremendous  struggle  within 
us  between  science  and  orthodox  religion,  which 
has  torn  the  wings  off  both;  and  partly  because 
we  are  paralysed  by  the  word  Democracy.  We 
dare  not  move  for  fear  of  endowing  education 
with  too  much  authority.  There  may,  of  course 
be  another  and  far  more  deadly  reason  why  we 
have  not  bestirred  ourselves.  We  may  be  too 
far  gone  to  devise  any  improved  standard  or 
machinery  of  education,  too  flaccid  to  impart,  or 
even  to  desire  to  impart,  to  our  education  that 

199 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

spiritual  quality,  that  devotion  to  an  ideal,  which 
is  our  only  hope.  If  so,  we  must  resign  ourselves 
to  a  desperate  class  struggle,  as  to  some  bitter, 
poisonous  tonic,  from  which  we  may  perhaps 
gain  strength  to  deal  with  our  disease,  but  of 
which  we  may  take  too  much  and  die.  Person- 
ally— being,  as  they  say,  a  pessimist — I  prefer  to 
think  that  all  is  not  yet  lost;  that  we  are  still 
capable  of  expressing  in  the  form  of  a  faith  the 
aspiration  toward  Perfection  that  does,  that  must, 
lie  inarticulate  within  us;  still  capable  of  finding 
machinery,  and  men  to  work  it,  that  shall  drive 
this  faith  into  the  very  heart  of  all  classes. 

At  all  events,  I  refuse  to  believe  that  we  can- 
not do  a  good  deal  more  with  education  as  a 
solvent  of  our  troubles  than  we  have  done  hith- 
erto. The  main  and  obvious  difficulty — one 
might  say  the  only  real  difficulty — in  education, 
as  in  all  the  affairs  of  life,  is  to  find  the  men;  and 
to  find  the  men  we  can  only  make  use  of  machin- 
ery which  is  acceptable  to  a  democratic  age. 
Yes,  we  cannot  now  go  outside  democracy,  and 
that  is  something  to  be  profoundly  grateful  for. 
The  only  trouble  with  democracy  is  that  it  is 
slow  and  inarticulate.  And  I  do  not  feel  that  the 
democratic  principle — in  which  I  believe  as  much 
as  any  man — will  ever  do  itself  justice  until  it 
discovers  some  quicker  way  than  it  yet  has  of 

200  " 


ON  SOCIAL  UNREST 

shaping  out  of  itself  its  spiritual  essence,  some 
swifter  way  of  extracting  from  itself  and  utilis- 
ing for  its  own  service  the  highest  aspiration 
and  finest  feeling  within  it.  It  has  succeeded  on 
the  whole  fairly  well  in  discovering  and  making 
use  of  its  best  business  and  administrative  minds; 
but  so  far  it  has  regarded  spirituality  as  com- 
pletely outside  its  province  and  deliberately  left 
it  to  religious  bodies  that  have  no  longer,  nation- 
ally speaking,  a  real  hold  on  us,  and  are  pro- 
fessedly autocratic.  In  fact,  democracy  at  pres- 
ent— and  not  only  here  but  in  America — offers 
the  spectacle  of  a  man  running  down  a  road  fol- 
lowed at  a  more  and  more  respectful  distance 
by  his  own  soul! 

Can  our  education  any  longer  be  safely  treated 
in  this  casual  way,  be  safely  left  to  churches 
from  whose  hand  it  has  too  far  slipped;  be  safely 
left  as  to  the  classes  to  chance  and  to  vested  in- 
terests; as  to  the  masses  to  mere  business  man- 
agement ? 

Should  we  not  rather  trust  it  coherently  and 
as  a  whole  to  the  finest  spirits  and  broadest  minds 
in  the  country;  to  spirits  that  can  be  relied  on 
to  hold,  and  to  minds  that  can  be  relied  on  to 
apply,  a  really  high  ideal;  relied  on,  too,  to  select 
and  train  the  best  men  available  for  the  propaga- 
tion of  that  ideal  ?    If  by  some  democratic  process 

201 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

we  could  sift  out  these  minds  from  among  us  and 
endow  them  with  wholesale  powers  of  selection, 
appointment,  and  training  of  teachers,  we  should 
have  established  a  sort  of  endless  band  on  which 
might  travel  a  perpetual  vitalising  current  of 
the  best  feeling  within  us.  To  find  these  finest 
spirits  and  broadest  minds  we  might  conceivably 
use  the  existing  representative  machinery  of  Par- 
liament, or  some  reformed  representative  system; 
or  we  might  institute  a  special  straining  and  sift- 
ing process,  by  means  of  plebiscite  within  plebis- 
cite, till  we  were  reasonably  sure  of  arriving  at 
the  men  best  fitted  to  be  entrusted  with  a  high, 
coherent  plan  of  education.  We  have,  then,  to 
found  and  place  under  their  guidance  a  great 
training  college,  wherein  the  higher  leaders  of  edu- 
cation may  be  imbued  with  the  new  spirit,  trained 
in  the  new  standards;  and  pass  out,  as  posts  fall 
vacant,  to  the  headships  of  schools  and  colleges. 
And  if  it  be  objected,  as  it  certainly  will,  that 
this  is  to  constitute  a  too-rigid  spiritual  bureau- 
cracy, the  answer  is  twofold :  This  is  the  plan  on 
which  you  order  all  your  political,  your  material 
life,  without  regarding  it  as  in  the  least  dangerous 
or  undemocratic;  and,  secondly,  you  have  at 
present  exactly  the  same  bureaucratic  methods 
of  appointment  in  education,  only  they  are  ex- 
ercised in  a  hole-and-corner   manner,   quite  in- 

202 


ON  SOCIAL  UNREST 

coherently,  and  without  any  democratic  check  at 
all. 

There  is  no  revolution  in  this  idea,  and  it  will 
certainly  prove  no  immediate  or  quack  remedy. 
It  is,  in  few  words,  a  suggestion  that  we  should 
adopt  for  spiritual  things,  for  states  of  mind, 
the  method  that,  roughly  speaking,  we  have 
found  works  best  in  material  matters.  Democ- 
racy will  never  really  flourish  till  it  has  taken 
charge,  and  that  right  heartily,  of  its  own  spiri- 
tuality. 

Life  itself  is  the  best  education  in  spirituality  a 
nation  gets.  But  the  plea  here  is  only  for  better 
machinery  to  express  and  direct  the  experience 
and  latent  good-will  which  is  implicit  within  the 
nation,  and  is  not  now  brought  out  into  the  light 
for  the  nation's  service.  We  are  living  in  a 
parched  field  under  which  there  is  plenty  of  water, 
but  we  have  sunk  no  well,  put  up  no  pumping- 
gear,  with  which  to  make  our  pasture  green.  Is 
the  notion  that  we  can  still  do  this  a  prepos- 
terous dream,  a  mere  presumptuous  counsel  of 
perfection  ? 

We  have  at  present  an  air  charged  with  trouble; 
if  we  are  not  to  shut  our  eyes,  fold  our  hands, 
and  drift,  all  th,at  we  do  must  be  in  the  direction 
of  improving  our  state  of  mind.  But  there  is  no 
way  of  improving  a  state  of  mind  save  by  fer- 

203 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

tilising  it  with  the  faith  and  good-will  of  a  higher 
mind.  Our  machinery  for  doing  this  has  failed 
us.  Indeed,  nationally  speaking,  we  no  longer 
have  any.  What  more  useful  efforts,  then,  can 
we  make  than  efforts  in  the  direction  of  discover- 
ing a  new  machinery  ?  And  the  finer  the  spirits, 
the  broader  the  minds,  we  place  in  charge  thereof, 
the  greater  power  we  give  them,  always  subject 
to  the  safeguard  of  election,  the  more  we  may 
hope  to  emerge  gradually  from  our  sinister  situ- 
ation. 


204 


ON  PEACE 


THE  WILL  TO  PEACE 

(From  The  Daily  Mail,  1909) 

I  was  walking  in  the  district  known  as  Notting 
Dale,  looking  for  signs  of  the  Millennium,  when 
I  saw  on  a  poster  these  words:  "Why  England 
and  Germany  must  go  to  war!" 

I  stood  gazing  at  them  in  the  company  of  a 
woman  the  worse  for  drink,  a  brutal-looking 
man,  a  consumptive  boy,  and  a  half -starved  horse 
harnessed  to  a  cart.  With  the  exception  of  the 
horse,  these  persons  were  soon  replaced  by  a  lit- 
tle labourer  with  a  very  sad  face,  and  a  sick- 
looking  woman  in  a  ragged  shawl.  When  they, 
in  turn,  passed  on,  I  was  joined  in  front  of  the 
poster  by  three  girls  going  home  from  work — 
the  sound  of  whose  laughter  was  like  the  snap- 
ping of  dried  sticks,  and  by  a  whisky-perfumed 
man  with  that  peculiar,  brazen  look  in  the  eye 
which  is  liable  to  sudden  eclipse.  These,  too, 
stayed  but  a  short  time,  and  their  places  before 
the  poster  were  filled  by  two  youths  in  ragged 
clothes,  with  dun-coloured  faces,  and  the  stumps 
of  cigarettes  between  pale  lips.     Their  footsteps 

205 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

and  obscenity  having  died  away,  I  was  left  alone 
with  the  poster  and  the  horse.  This  horse's  ribs 
were  conspicuous;  and  from  the  size  of  egg-cup 
shaped  hollows  above  eyes  covered  with  a  blue- 
ish  film,  he  had  evidently  laboured  to  the  limit 
of  Ins  capacity.  He  was  resting  one  thin  leg- 
too  hairless  at  the  knee,  too  hairy  at  the  heel. 
Two  very  young  children  came  now,  and  hold- 
ing each  other's  hands,  flattened  their  noses 
against  the  poster  in  the  shop  window.  One  of 
them  moved  her  feet  continually  as  if  her  boots 
hurt  her,  while  on  the  feet  of  the  other  were  the 
wrecks  of  boots. 

And  I  said  to  myself:  In  hundreds  of  towns 
all  over  the  country,  people  like  this  are  stand- 
ing before  that  poster,  or  passing  by  it.  One- 
third  of  the  population  are  below  the  line  of 
reasonable  subsistence,  another  third  are  able 
by  the  constant  employment  of  every  energy  to 
keep  their  heads  just  on  that  line.  We  are  the 
richest  country  in  the  world,  so  that  even  in  or- 
ganised Germany  conditions  little  better  may 
very  well  be  prevalent.  This  poster  declares  that 
England  and  Germany  must  go  to  war.  And  this 
poster  is  no  joke,  but  the  indication  of  a  frame  of 
mind.  Moreover,  I  mused,  credit  for  sincerity 
being  due  to  all  men  until  the  opposite  is  proved 
against  them,  this  frame  of  mind  must  be  honest 
and  founded  on  genuine  fear — must  be,  in  fact, 

206 


THE   WILL  TO  PEACE 

the  conviction  of  many;  not  only  in  this  country 
but  in  Germany.  They  contemplate  a  war  be- 
tween two  nations,  two-thirds  of  whose  respec- 
tive populations  are  as  yet  barely  able  to  make 
a  living;  a  war  that  means  wasting  many  hun- 
dred million  pounds  and  the  earning  power  of 
many  hundred  thousand  lives;  a  war  that  will 
in  six  months  cast  on  to  the  dust-heap  twenty 
years  of  social  progress;  a  war  that  may  well 
have  no  semblance  of  nobility,  no  great  motto, 
no  inspiring  cause,  but  be  a  mere  sordid  strug- 
gle between  two  business  communities,  for  so- 
called  commercial  ends;  a  war  that  may  be  un- 
paralleled for  cold-blooded  horror  and  myopic 
puerility.  And  the  poster  speaks  of  this  war  as 
if  it  were  inevitable! 

Where,  I  asked  myself,  can  the  people  who 
thus  think  and  speak  have  lived?  Where  have 
they  kept  their  hearts,  and  brains,  and  eyes,  and 
noses?  Can  they  not  see  these  millions  of  ghosts 
in  their  midst  ?  Or  do  they  think  to  fatten  them 
by  war?  Do  they  think  by  war  to  cheapen  the 
price  of  bread  and  coals,  to  spread  education, 
to  foster  the  growth  of  science  and  of  the  arts? 
Will  they  by  war  preserve  the  strongest  males 
for  the  improvement  of  the  human  stock?  Will 
they  by  war  advance  in  any  single  way  the  slow 
process  of  humanising  a  civilisation  which  still 

207 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

produces  in  millions  the  beings  who  have  been 
standing  with  me  here  before  that  poster?  No 
— I  thought — they  will  certainly  reply:  "War 
is  an  evil,  but  it  is  necessary;  for  the  human 
race  is  divided  into  breeds,  distinct  from  one 
another,  and  plunged  into  struggle  from  their 
births  up.  Only  in  each  country's  jealous  preser- 
vation of  itself  can  we  look  for  the  welfare  of 
the  whole.  There  is  no  avail  in  dreams  of  peace; 
no  use  in  preparation  for  it;  men  have  always 
killed  each  other  for  their  own  advantage  and 
always  will;  if  they  did  not  so  kill  their  neigh- 
bours they  could  not  themselves  survive.  Life 
is  so  conditioned;  there  is  not  enough  for  all. 
We  know,  therefore,  that  this  war  must  come. 
We  see  it  coming.  We  have  fastened  our  eyes 
on  it.  We  cannot  get  out  of  its  way.  We  must 
offer  ourselves  up  in  holy  sacrifice  before  this 
bloody,  predestined   monster." 

Well ! — I  thought — if  it  is  sacrifice  you  want, 
look  at  that  horse!  Look  at  all  the  people  who 
have  stood  before  this  poster!  They  will  take 
all  your  powers  of  sacrifice  before  you  have  done 
with  them!  And  I,  myself,  looked  at  the  horse; 
with  his  bleared  eyes  and  the  curves  at  the  cor- 
ners of  his  mouth,  I  thought  I  had  never  seen 
such  a  cynical-looking  creature.  "  What  are  you, 
after  all,"  he  seemed  to  be  saying  to  me,  "but  a 
set  of  sanguinary  tailless  animals?" 

208 


THE  WILL  TO  PEACE 

But  suddenly  the  eyes  of  my  mind  travelled 
beyond  sight  of  that  poster,  and  as  in  a  vi- 
sion I  seemed  to  see  all  the  great  lives  men  have 
lived,  all  the  high  thoughts  they  have  conceived, 
all  their  wonderful  ingenuity  and  perseverance 
and  strength  of  will;  how  they  have  always 
found  a  way  to  fulfil  that  on  which  they  have 
set  their  hearts.  And  as  background  to  that 
vision  there  seemed  disclosed  to  me  the  untold, 
unexploited  wealth  of  the  fields,  woods,  and 
waters  under  the  sun.  And  I  thought:  "What 
that  poster  says  is  only  true  of  such  as  will  it  to 
be  true.  Where  there  is  a  will  to  peace  there  is  a 
way*  War  between  two  such  countries,  two 
trustees  of  civilisation,  need  not  be  inevitable. 
To  believe  that  is  to  blaspheme,  to  belittle  human 
nature,  to  deny  the  Earth." 

*  Note. — I  recollect  that  the  journal  which  this  poster  served 
to  sell  contained  an  article  professing  to  prove  that  war  between 
England  and  Germany  was  inevitable,  because  of  the  rivalry 
between  their  trades.  I  thought  then  and  think  now  that  such 
a  reason  was  blasphemous.  In  spite  of  all  the  bitter  cry  for 
commercial  war  that  has  now  arisen,  we  did  not,  and  we  never 
should  have  gone  to  war  with  Germany  for  such  a  reason  alone. 
The  war  that — alas ! — has  come,  has  for  us  a  better,  an  inspir- 
ing cause.  None  the  less,  I  freely  admit  not  gauging  rightly  the 
state  of  mind  of  Germany's  ruling  classes.  I  always  thought  the 
question  of  war  or  no  war  was  a  great  'toss-up'  between  the 
craze  for  armament  and  the  growth  of  international  feeling 
through  social  democracy.  I  thought  the  latter  would  win  if 
people  would  set  their  wills  on  Peace,  and  we  could  tide  over 
the  next  few  years.     I  was  wrong. — J.  G. 


209 


MUCH  CRY— LITTLE  WOOL 

II 

PEACE  OF  THE  AIR      - 

(A  letter  to  The  Times,  1911) 

Beyond  all  the  varying  symptoms  of  mad- 
ness in  the  life  of  modern  nations,  the  most  dread- 
ful is  this  prostitution  of  the  conquest  of  the  air 
to  the  ends  of  warfare. 

If  ever  men  presented  a  spectacle  of  sheer 
inanity  it  is  now — when,  having  at  long  last  tri- 
umphed in  their  struggle  to  subordinate  to  their 
welfare  the  unconquered  element,  they  have 
straightway  commenced  to  defile  that  element, 
so  heroically  mastered,  by  filling  it  with  engines 
of  destruction.  If  ever  the  gods  were  justified 
of  their  ironic  smile — by  the  gods,  it  is  now! 
Is  there  any  thinker  alive  watching  this  still  ut- 
terly preventable  calamity  without  horror  and 
despair?  Horror  of  what  must  come  of  it  if  not 
promptly  stopped;  despair  that  men  can  be  so 
blind,  so  hopelessly  and  childishly  the  slaves  of 
their  own  marvellous  inventive  powers.  Was 
there  ever  so  patent  a  case  for  scotching  at  birth 
a  hideous  development  of  the  black  arts  of  war- 
fare; ever  such  an  occasion  for  the  Powers  in 
conference  to  ban  once  and  for  all  a  new  and 
ghastly  menace? 

210 


PEACE  OF  THE  AIR 

A  little  reason,  a  grain  of  common  sense,  a 
gleam  of  sanity  before  it  is  too  late;  before  vested 
interests  and  the  chains  of  a  new  habit  have 
enslaved  us  too  hopelessly.  If  this  fresh  devilry 
be  not  quenched  within  the  next  few  years,  it 
will  be  too  late.  Water  and  earth  are  wide 
enough  for  men  to  kill  each  other  on.  For  the 
love  of  the  sun,  and  stars,  and  the  blue  sky, 
that  have  given  us  all  our  aspirations  since  the 
beginning  of  time,  let  us  leave  the  air  to  inno- 
cence !  Will  not  those  who  have  eyes  to  see, 
good-will,  and  the  power  to  put  that  good-will 
into  practice,  bestir  themselves  while  there  is  yet 
time,  and  save  mankind  from  this  last  and  worst 
of  all  its  follies? 


211 


THE  WAR 


VALLEY  OF  THE  SHADOW 

(From  The  Nation,  1915) 

God,  I  am  travelling  out  to  death's  sea, 

I,  who  exulted  in  sunshine  and  laughter, 
Thought  not  of  dying — death  is  such  waste  of  me ! 

Grant  me  one  comfort :   Leave  not  the  hereafter 
Of  mankind  to  war,  as  though  I  had  died  not — 

I,  who  in  battle,  my  comrade's  arm  linking, 
Shouted  and  sang — life  in  my  pulses  hot 

Throbbing  and  dancing!    Let  not  my  sinking 
In  dark  be  for  naught,  my  death  a  vain  thing! 

God,  let  me  know  it  the  end  of  man's  fever! 
Make  my  last  breath  a  bugle  call,  carrying 

Peace  o'er  the  valleys  and  cold  hills,  for  ever! 


215 


CREDO 

(From  The  Neutral  Press,  1914) 

To  love  peace  with  all  one's  heart.  To  feel 
that  war  is  outrage — a  black  stain  on  the  hu- 
manity and  the  fame  of  man.  To  hate  milita- 
rism and  the-  god  of  force.  To  go  any  length  to 
avoid  war  for  material  interests,  war  that  in- 
volves no  principles,  distrusting  profoundly  the 
common  meaning  of  the  phrase  'national  hon- 
our'— all  this  is  my  belief. 

But  there  is  a  national  honour  charged  with 
the  future  happiness  of  man;  loyalty  is  due  from 
those  living  to  those  that  will  come  after;  civili- 
sation can  only  wax  and  flourish  in  a  world 
where  faith  is  kept;  for  nations,  as  for  individ- 
uals, there  are  laws  of  duty,  whose  violation 
harms  the  whole  human  race;  in  sum,  stars  of 
conduct  shine  for  peoples,  as  for  private  men. 

And  so  I  hold  that  without  tarnishing  true 
honour,  endangering  civilisation  present  and  to 
come,  and  ruining  all  hope  of  future  tranquillity, 
my  country  could  not  have  refused  to  take  up 
arms  for  the  defence  of  her  neighbour  Belgium's 
outraged  neutrality,  which  she  had  solemnly  guar- 
anteed. 

216 


CREDO 

I  claim,  from  the  trend  of  events  and  of  na- 
tional character  during  the  last  century,  that  in 
democracy  alone  lies  any  coherent  hope  of  pro- 
gressive civilisation  or  any  chance  of  lasting 
peace  in  Europe  or  the  world. 

I  believe  that  this  democratic  principle,  how- 
ever imperfectly  developed,  has  so  worked  in 
France,  in  Britain,  in  the  United  States,  that 
these  countries  are  already  nearly  safe  from  in- 
clination to  aggress,  or  to  subdue  other  nation- 
alities that  have  reached  approximately  their 
stage  of  development. 

And  I  believe  that  while  there  remain  auto- 
cratic governments  basing  themselves  on  mili- 
tarism, hostile  at  heart  to  the  democratic  prin- 
ciple, Europe  will  never  be  free  of  the  surcharge 
of  swollen  armaments,  the  nightmare  menace 
of  wars  like  this — the  paralysis  that  creeps  on 
civilisations  which  adore  the  god  of  force. 

And  so  I  hold  that  without  betrayal  of  trustee- 
ship, without  shirking  the  elementary  defence 
of  beliefs  coiled  within  its  fibre,  or  beliefs  vital 
to  the  future  welfare  of  all  men,  my  country 
could  not  stand  by  and  see  the  ruin  of  France, 
that  very  cradle  of  democracy. 

I  believe  that  democratic  culture  spreads  from 
west  to  east,  that  only  by  maintenance  of  con- 
solidate democracy  in  Western  Europe  can  de- 

217 


THE   WAR 

mocracy  ever  hope  to  push  on  and  prevail  till  the 
Eastern  Powers  have  also  that  ideal  under  which 
alone  humanity  can  nourish. 

And  so  I  hold  that  my  country  is  justified  at 
this  juncture  in  its  alliance  with  the  autocratic 
power  of  Russia,  whose  people  will  never  know 
freedom  till  her  borders  are  joined  to  the  borders 
of  a  true  democracy  in  Central  Europe. 

I  do  not  believe  that  jealous,  frightened  jingo- 
ism has  been  more  than  the  dirty  fringe  of  Brit- 
ain's peace-loving  temper,  and  I  profess  my  sacred 
faith  that  my  country  has  gone  to  war,  against 
her  will,  but  because  she  must — for  honour,  for 
democracy,  and  for  the  future  of  mankind. 


218 


FRANCE 

(From  The  Westminster  Gazette,  1914) 

France!  Beautiful  word!  Beautiful  land! 
What  a  proud  soul  lives  in  that  France,  now- 
racked  and  tortured !  What  chimes  will  ring  when 
the  last  invader  is  pushed  back  over  the  edge  of 
the  lost  provinces!  Land  for  whom,  when  you 
are  hard  driven,  the  heart  most  aches !  Is  it  that 
you  are  woman,  with  a  caress  in  your  eyes,  and 
your  floating  robe;  with  mystery  in  your  clear, 
woman's  smile,  and  that  promise  of  eternal  con- 
stancy which  man  never  offers  ?  Is  it  that  in  you 
we  feel,  as  in  no  other  land,  a  presence,  such  as 
in  some  houses  makes  life  assured  and  lovely;  a 
presence  inhabiting  the  air  of  every  room,  more 
precious  than  its  garniture  ?  Take  away  the  trap- 
pings, make  desolate  that  place  of  all  material 
things,  and  there  will  yet  be  the  loved  one,  there 
will  yet  be  the  gracious,  ardent  spirit. 

France!  You,  of  all  countries,  have  the  gift 
of  Living  Form,  of  a  coherent  grace,  like  that  of 
your  own  flower  of  light,  or  such  as  haunts  La 
Gioconda,  listening  to  life. 

When  I  think  of  you  there  comes  into  my 
mind  the  image  of  a  lime-tree,  in  her  spring  garb 

219 


THE  WAR 

of  buds  delicate,  breaking  to  little  gay  leaves 
ecstatic  in  each  wind;  in  her  summer  dress  so 
full,  so  perfumed  with  honey-coloured  blossoms; 
in  her  autumn  robe  of  few  golden  leaves,  flat  on 
the  clear  air,  and  trembling,  trembling,  with  each 
breath  of  the  day;  and  in  her  pale  winter  naked- 
ness— ever  the  same  essential  goddess  of  a  tree, 
perfect  in  form. 

France!  It  is  your  power  to  see  that  "soul  in 
things"  which  we  call  ideals,  to  bring  to  life  the 
truths  you  have  seen,  and.  so  to  concrete  and 
shape  your  vision  that  it  becomes  the  rock 
spiritual  on  which  nations  stand.  Because  you 
are  the  living  incarnation  of  your  clear,  unflinch- 
ing spirit,  we  others  love  you. 

You  stand  before  the  world,  true  embodiment 
of  your  three  immortal  words,  as  your  immortal 
tune  is  the  true  voice  of  a  land's  ardour  and  de- 
votion. 

You  have  sloughed  off  the  gross  and  the  vain- 
glorious flesh  of  nations !  You  are  the  flame  in 
the  night !    In  this  hour  we  see,  and  know  you ! 

Great  and  touching  comrade!  Clear,  invin- 
cible France!  To-day,  in  your  grave  chivalry, 
you  were  never  so  high,  so  desirable,  so  true  to 
yourself  and  to  Humanity! 


220 


REVEILLE 

(From  King  Albert's  Book,  1914) 

In  my  dream  I  saw  a  fertile  plain,  rich  with 
the  hues  of  autumn.  Tranquil  it  was  and  warm. 
Men,  women,  children,  and  the  beasts  worked 
and  played  and  wandered  there  in  peace.  Under 
the  blue  sky  and  the  white  clouds  low-hanging, 
great  trees  shaded  the  fields;  and  from  all  the 
land  rose  a  murmur  as  from  bees  clustering  on 
the  rose-coloured  blossoms  of  tall  clover.  In 
my  dream,  I  roamed,  looking  into  faces — pros- 
perous and  well  favoured — of  people  living  in  a 
land  of  plenty,  drinking  the  joy  of  life,  caring 
nothing  for  the  morrow.,  But  I  could  not  see 
their  eyes,  which  seemed  ever  cast  down,  watching 
the  progress  of  their  feet  over  the  rich  grass  and 
the  golden  leaves  already  fallen  from  the  trees. 
The  longer  I  walked  among  them  the  more  I 
wondered  that  I  could  see  the  eyes  of  none,  not 
even  of  the  little  children,  not  even  of  the  beasts. 

And,  while  I  mused  on  this,  the  sky  began  to 
darken.  A  mutter  as  of  distant  waters  came 
travelling.  The  children  stopped  their  play,  the 
beasts  raised  their  heads;  men  and  women  halted 

221 


THE  WAR 

and  cried  to  each  other:  "The  River  is  rising! 
If  it  floods,  we  are  lost !  Our  beasts  will  drown; 
we,  even  we,  shall  drown!  The  River!"  And 
women  stood  like  images  of  stone,  listening;  men 
shook  their  fists  at  the  black  sky,  the  beasts 
sniffed  the  darkening  air. 

Then  I  heard  a  clear  Voice  call:  "Brothers! 
The  dike  is  breaking!  Link  arms;  with  the 
dike  of  our  bodies  we  will  save  our  homes !  Link 
arms  behind  us,  Sisters !  Children,  close  in ! 
The  River!"  And  all  that  multitude,  whom  I 
had  seen  treading  quietly  the  grass,  came  hur- 
rying, their  eyes  no  longer  fixed  on  the  rich  plain, 
but  lifted  in  trouble  and  defiance.  And  the 
Voice  called:    "Hasten!    The  dike  is  broken." 

By  thousands  and  thousands  they  pressed, 
shoulder  to  shoulder — men,  women,  children,  and 
the  beasts  lying  down  behind,  till  the  living  dike 
was  formed.  And  the  black  flood  came  travel- 
ling till  its  wave-crests  glinted  like  the  whites  of 
glaring  eyes,  and  the  harsh  clamour  of  the  waters 
was  as  a  roar  from  a  million  mouths.  But  the 
Voice  called:  "Hold,  brothers!"  And  from  the 
living  dike  came  answer:    "We  hold!" 

Then  the  dark  water  broke;  and  from  all  the 
wall  of  bodies  rose  the  cry  of  struggle. 

But  above  it  ever  the  Voice  called:    "Hold!" 

And  the  answer  still  came  from  the  mouths, 

222 


REVEILLE 

of  drowning  men  and  women,  of  the  very  chil- 
dren:  "We  hold!"  * 

But  the  water  rolled  over  and  on.  Down  in 
its  black  tumult,  beneath  its  cruel  rush,  I  saw 
men  still  with  arms  linked;  women  on  their 
knees,  clinging  to  earth;  little  children  drifting 
— all  dead.  But  the  shades  of  the  dead  with 
arms  yet  linked  were  fronting  the  edge  of  the 
savage  waters.    None  had  turned  away.  .  .  . 

Once  more  I  dreamed.  The  plain  was  free  of 
darkness,  free  of  waters.  The  River,  shrunk 
and  muddied,  flowed  again  within  its  banks. 
And  dawn  was  breaking. 

At  first  it  seemed  to  me  that  only  trees  stood 
on  that  plain;  then,  in  the  ground  mist,  fast 
clearing,  I  saw  the  forms  of  men  and  women, 
children,  beasts;  and  I  moved  among  them, 
looking  at  their  faces — not  broad  and  prosper- 
ous, but  grave  from  suffering,  carved,  and  strong. 
And  their  eyes  were  shining. 

While  I  stood  thus  watching,  the  sun  rose,  and, 
above  the  plain  clad  in  the  hues  of  spring,  the 
heaven  brightened  to  full  morning.  Amazed,  I 
saw  that  the  stars  had  not  gone  in,  but  shone 
there  in  the  blue. 

And,  clear,  I  heard  the  same  Voice  call:  "Broth- 
ers !    Behold !    The  Stars  are  lit  for  ever  I" 


223 


FIRST  THOUGHTS  ON  THIS  WAR 

(From  Scribner's  Magazine,  1914) 


Three  hundred  thousand  church  spires  raised 
to  the  glory  of  Christ!  Three  hundred  million 
human  creatures  baptised  into  his  service !  And 
— War  to  the  death  of  them  all!  "I  trust  the 
Almighty  to  give  the  victory  to  my  arms!" 
"Let  your  hearts  beat  to  God,  and  your  fists  in 
the  face  of  the  enemy!"  "In  prayer  we  call 
God's  blessing  on  our  valiant  troops!" 

God  on  the  lips  of  each  potentate,  and  under 
a  hundred  thousand  spires  prayer  that  twenty- 
two  million  servants  of  Christ  may  receive  from 
God  the  blessed  strength  to  tear  and  blow  each 
other  to  pieces,  to  ravage  and  burn,  to  wrench 
husbands  from  wives,  fathers  from  their  children, 
to  starve  the  poor,  and  everywhere  destroy  the 
works  of  the  spirit!  Prayer  under  the  hundred 
thousand  spires  for  the  blessed  strength  of  God,  to 
use  the  noblest,  most  loyal  instincts  of  the  human 
race  to  the  ends  of  carnage !  "  God  be  with  us 
to  the  death  and  dishonour  of  our  foes" — [whose 
God  He  is  no  less  than  ours!]     The  God  who 

224 


FIRST  THOUGHTS  ON  THIS  WAR 

gave  His  only  begotten  Son  to  bring  on  earth 
peace  and  good-will  toward  men ! 

No  supernatural  creed — in  these  days  when 
two  and  two  are  put  together — can  stand  against 
such  reeling  subversion.  After  this  monstrous 
mockery,  beneath  this  grinning  skull  of  irony, 
how  shall  there  remain  faith  in  this  personal  out- 
side God,  whom  we  can  thus  divide,  appropriate, 
and  invoke;  how  remain  faith  in  the  articles,  the 
formal  structure  of  a  religion  preached  and  prac- 
tised to  such  ends?  When  this  war  is  over  and 
reason  resumes  its  sway,  our  dogmas  will  be  found 
to  have  been  scored  through  for  ever.  Whatever 
else  be  the  outcome  of  this  business,  let  us  at  least 
realise  the  truth:  It  is  the  death  of  dogmatic 
Christianity !  Let  us  will  that  it  be  the  birth  of 
a  God  within  us,  and  an  ethic  Christianity  that 
men  really  practise! 


2§ 

Yes !  Dogmatic  Christianity  was  dying  before 
this  war  began.  When  it  is  over,  or  as  soon  as 
men's  reason  comes  back  to  them,  it  will  be  dead. 
In  France,  England,  Germany,  in  Belgium,  and 
the  other  small  countries,  dead;  and  only  kept 
wonderingly  alive  in  Russia  and  some  parts  of 

225 


THE  WAR 

Austria  through  peasant  simplicity.  "Tell  me, 
brother,  what  have  the  Japanese  done  to  us  that 
we  should  kill  them?" — so  said  the  Russian  peas- 
ant in  the  Japanese  war.  So  they  may  say  in  this 
war.  And  at  the  end  go  back  and  resume  praise 
of  the  tribal  God  who  fought  for  Holy  Russia 
against  the  tribal  God  who  fought  for  valiant 
Austria  and  the  mailed  fists  of  Germany. 

This  superstitional  Christianity  will  not  die 
in  the  open  and  be  buried  with  pomp  and  cere- 
mony; it  will  merely  be  dead — a  very  different 
thing;  like  the  nerve  in  a  tooth,  that,  to  the 
outward  eye  is  just  as  it  was.  That  which  will 
take  its  place  has  already  been  a  long  time  pre- 
paring to  come  forward.  It  will  be  too  much 
in  earnest  to  care  for  forms  and  ceremonies.  And 
one  thing  is  certain — it  will  be  far  more  Chris- 
tian than  the  so-called  Christianity  which  has 
brought  us  to  these  present  ends.  Its  creed  will 
be  a  noiseless  and  passionate  conviction  that 
man  can  be  saved,  not  by  a  far-away,  despotic 
God  who  can  be  enlisted  by  each  combatant  for 
the  destruction  of  his  foes,  but  by  the  divine  ele- 
ment in  man,  the  God  within  the  human  soul. 
That,  in  proportion  as  man  is  high,  so  will  the 
life  of  man  be  high,  safe  from  shames  like  this, 
and  devoid  of  his  old  misery.  The  creed  will  be 
a  fervent,  almost  secret  application  of  the  say- 

226 


FIRST  THOUGHTS  ON  THIS  WAR 

ing:  "Love  thy  neighbour  as  thyself!"  It  will 
be  ashamed  of  appeals  to  God  to  put  right  that 
which  man  has  bungled;  of  supplications  to  the 
deity  to  fight  against  the  deity.  It  will  have  the 
pride  of  the  artist  and  the  artisan.  And  it  will 
have  its  own  mysticism,  its  own  wonder,  and 
reverence  for  the  mystery  of  the  all-embracing 
Principle  which  ha?  produced  such  a  creature  as 
this  man,  with  such  marvellous  potentiality  for 
the  making  of  fine  things,  and  the  living  of  fine 
lives;  such  heroism,  such  savagery;  such  wis- 
dom and  such  black  stupidity;  such  a  queer  in- 
superable instinct  for  going  on  and  on  and  ever 
on! 


3§ 

The  Western  world  has  had  its  lesson  now — 
the  lesson  indelibly  writ  in  death:  There  is  no 
longer  room  in  civilisation  for  despotic  govern- 
ments. In  Germany,  in  Austria,  in  the  country 
where  despotism  most  reigns  supreme — our  ally, 
Russia — they  are  doomed  in  theory,  if  not  as  yet 
in  fact. 

The  Slav  is  no  more  by  nature  the  enemy  of 
the  Teuton  than  the  Briton  of  the  Frank.  That 
enmity  is  a  fostered  thing  of  imperial  and  bu- 
reaucratic dreams. 

227 


THE   WAR 

What  stands  out  from  all  this  welter?  The 
ambitious  diplomacy  of  the  despotic  powers,  in 
pursuit  of  so-called  "national  ideals,"  a  diplo- 
macy begotten  of  vicious  traditions  and  the 
misconceptions  of  egomania,  removed  by  a  ring 
fence  from  the  people  of  the  nations  for  whom 
it  professes  to  speak.  An  ambitious  and  cynical 
diplomacy,  battening  on  the  knowledge  that  it 
can  at  almost  any  time  raise  for  its  ends  a  whirl- 
wind of  feeling  out  of  the  love  men  ever  have  for 
the  land  wherein  they  are  born. 

It  is  the  divorce  of  executive  power  from 
popular  sanction  that  has  made  possible  this 
greatest  of  all  the  disasters  in  history.  In  demo- 
cratic countries  the  aggressive  faculty  is  imper- 
ceptibly yet  continually  weakened  by  the  obscure 
but  real  link  between  ministers-elect  and  the 
people.  Only  in  those  countries  where,  under  a 
cloak  perhaps  of  democratic  forms,  the  admin- 
istrative force  is  responsible  to  none  save  an  im- 
perial director,  is  a  ruthless  and  unchecked  pur- 
suit of  so-called  national  dreams,  an  aggressive 
parade  of  so-called  national  honour,  possible. 

If  only  despotisms,  autocracies — masquerading 
or  naked — go  down  in  the  wreckage  of  this  war ! 


228 


FIRST  THOUGHTS   ON  THIS   WAR 


4§ 

The  superstition  that  unmilitarised  nations  suf- 
fer from  fatty  degeneration  of  the  heart  has  per- 
ished in  the  forty-fourth  year  of  its  age,  at  the 
siege  of  Liege,  blown  away  by  the  heroism  of  a 
little  unmilitary  nation ! 

Democracy  and  citizen  armies!  If  this  war 
brings  that  in  its  train  its  horror  will  not  have 
been  all  hateful.  But  so  surely  as  states  remain 
autocratic  at  heart,  will  the  dire  spirit  that  ani- 
mates almighty  bureaucracy  rear  its  head  again 
and  demand  revenge.  So  surely  will  this  war 
bring  another,  and  yet  another!  In  these  last 
twenty  years  civilisation  has  not  even  marked 
time;  it  has  gone  backward  under  the  curb  and 
pressure  of  professional  armaments  masquerading 
under  the  words:  "Si  vis  pacem,  para  bellum." 
The  principle  of  universal  sendee  by  men  not 
professionally  soldiers,  the  principle  that  no  man 
shall  be  called  to  fight  one  step  outside  his  native 
land — save  as  part  of  an  international  police  to  en- 
force the  authority  of  a  League  for  Peace — these 
are  the  only  principles  that  will  in  the  future  still 
the  gnawings  of  anxiety  and  gradually  guaran- 
tee the  peace  of  the  West.  They  are  principles 
that,  I  fear,  will  never  obtain  while  states  arc 

229 


THE   WAK 

subject  to  military  bureaucracy  and  dynastic 
ambitions.  If  they  cannot  be  purged  of  them, 
we  are  'doomed  to  something  great'  every  gen- 
eration— the  greatness  of  the  shambles!  It  is 
enough  to  make  heart  stand  still  and  brain  reel 
for  ever  if  one  must  believe  that  man  is  never  to 
find  better  means  of  keeping  his  spirit  from  rust, 
his  body  from  decay,  than  these  sporadic  out- 
bursts of  ' greatness.'  "  War  is  the  only  cleanser !" 
Ah !  because  the  word  patriotism  has  so  limited 
a  meaning.  But— to  believe  that  this  must  al- 
ways be  .  .  .  !  When  men  have  ceased  to  look 
on  war  as  the  proper  vehicle  for  self-sacrifice,  will 
they  not  turn  to  a  greatness  that  is  not  soaked 
with  blood  and  black  with  the  crows  of  death,  to 
save  their  souls  alive?  Will  there  not,  can  there 
not,  arise  an  emotion  as  strong  as  this  present 
patriotism — a  sentiment  as  passionate  and  sweep- 
ing, bearing  men  on  to  the  use  of  every  faculty 
and  the  forgetfulness  of  self,  for  the  salvation, 
instead  of  the  destruction  of  their  fellow  men? 
Or  is  this  a  dream,  and  are  we  for  ever  doomed, 
each  generation,  to  the  greatness  of  tearing  each 
other  limb  from  limb? 


230 


FIRST  THOUGHTS  ON  THIS  WAR 


5§ 

Three  weeks  before  this  war  began  I  was  in 
one  of  those  East  End  London  parishes,  whose 
inhabitants  exist  from  hand  to  mouth  on  casual 
employment  and  sweated  labour;  where  the 
women,  poor,  thin,  overworked  souls,  have  neither 
time  nor  strength  nor  inclination  for  cleanliness 
and  comeliness  in  person  or  house;  where  the  men 
are  undersized  and  underfed,  with  the  faces  of 
those  without  a  future;  where  pale  and  stunted 
children  playing  in  the  gutters  have  a  monopoly 
of  any  mirthless  gaiety  there  is. 

In  one  household  of  two  rooms  they  were  "free 
of  debt,  thank  Gawd!"  having  just  come  back 
from  fruit-picking,  and  were  preparing  to  take  up 
family  existence  again  on  the  wife's  making  of 
match-boxes  at  a  maximum  of  six  shillings  a  week, 
the  husband  not  having  found  a  job  as  yet.  In 
another  household,  of  one  room  swarming  with 
flies  and  foul  with  a  sickly,  acrid  odour,  a  baby 
half  asleep  on  the  few  rags  of  a  bed  bereft  of  bed- 
clothes, its  lips  pressed  to  something  rubbery, 
and  flies  about  its  eyes;  dirty  bowls  of  messes 
stood  about;  an  offal  heap  lay  in  the  empty 
grate;  and  at  a  table  in  the  little  window  a 
pallid  woman  of  forty  with  a  running  cold  was 

231 


THE  WAR 

desperately  sewing  the  soles  on  to  tiny  babies' 
shoes.  Beside  her  was  asmall  dirty  boy,  who  had 
just  been  lost  and  brought  home  by  a  policeman, 
because  he  remembered  the  name  of  the  street 
he  lived  in.  The  woman  looked  up  at  us  wist- 
fully, and  said:  "I  thought  I'd  lost  'im,  too,  I 
did;  like  the  one  that  fell  in  the  canal."  Though 
she  still  had  seven,  though  her  husband  was  out 
of  work,  though  she  only  made  five  to  six  shillings 
a  week,  she  could  not  spare  any  of  the  children 
she  had  borne. 

Prices  have  gone  up.  What  is  happening  to 
such  as  these?  They  or  their  like  exist  in  all 
countries.  You  military  bureaucrats  who  safe- 
guard and  pursue  "national  aspirations,"  who  open 
the  gates  of  the  kennel  and  let  loose  these  mad 
dogs  of  war;  who  rive  husbands  from  their  wives, 
sons  from  their  mothers,  and  send  them  out  by 
the  hundred  thousand  to  become  lumps  of  bloody 
clay — spare  a  fraction  of  time  to  see  the  peoples 
for  "whose  good"  you  launch  this  glorious  mur- 
der; come  and  sniff  for  one  moment  that  sickly, 
acrid  smell  in  the  homes  of  the  poor !  And  then 
talk  of  national  aspirations  and  necessities ! 

There  is  only  one  national  aspiration  worth  the 
name,  only  one  national  necessity.  To  have 
from  roof  to  basement  a  clean,  healthy,  happy 
national  house.     "War  the  cleanser!     Without 

232 


FIRST  THOUGHTS   ON  THIS   WAR 

war — no  sacrifice,  no  nobility!"  I  refer  you  to 
that  mother,  slaving  without  hope  and  without 
glory,  starved  and  ill,  and  slaving  in  a  war  with 
death  that  lasts  all  her  life,  for  the  children  she 
has  borne. 


6§ 

The  Russian  people  is  not  Russia,  unless  it 
should  become  so  in  this  war.  There  has  been 
hitherto  an  almost  absolute  divorce  between  the 
essentially  democratic  nature  of  the  Russian  and 
the  despotic  methods  by  which  Russia  is  governed. 
We  English  and  French,  fighting  not  only  for  our 
lives,  but  for  democracy,  for  the  decent  preser- 
vation of  treaty  rights,  and  a  humanity  that  we 
believe  can  only  flourish  under  democratic  rule, 
find  it  somewhat  ironical  that  we  have  with  us  a 
despotism.  And  there  is  a  profound  reason  why 
it  has  been  and  will  be  difficult  for  Russia  to 
change  its  form  of  government.  The  emotional, 
uncalculating  Russian  has  little  sense  of  money, 
space,  or  time;  he  falls  an  easy  prey  to  those 
sterner,  more  matter-of-fact  than  himself.  Bu- 
reaucracy attracts  the  hard  and  practical  ele- 
ments of  a  population;  there  are,  or  were,  many 
of  Teutonic  origin  manning  Russian  officialdom. 
And   Russia   is   so   huge;   democratic  rule  will 

233 


THE   WAR 

find  it  difficult  to  be  swift  enough;  in  decen- 
tralisation there  is  danger  of  disruption.  Never- 
theless, we  welcome  the  help  of  Russia,  for,  if 
France  and  we  were  beaten,  it  would  not  only  be 
our  own  deaths,  but  the  death  of  democracy  and 
humanism  in  Europe — perhaps  in  the  world.  The 
tide  of  democracy  sets  from  the  West.  It  must 
permeate  Germany  before  it  reaches  Russia.  Out 
of  this  war  many  things  may  come.  If  Fate 
grant  that  military  despotisms  fall  in  any  coun- 
try, they  may  well  fall  in  all,  and  our  ally,  Russia, 
gain  at  last  a  constitution  and  some  real  measure 
of  democratic  freedom,  some  real  coherence  be- 
tween the  Russian  people  and  Russian  policy. 


7§ 

When  the  conscript  souls  disembodied  by  this 
war  meet,  if  they  meet  at  all,  how  will  they  talk 
of  this  last  madness?  Perhaps  one  in  each  hun- 
dred will  be  able  to  say  from  his  heart:  "I  was 
happy  with  a  rifle  or  sword  and  some  of  you  to 
be  killed  in  front  of  me ! "  The  remaining  ninety- 
nine  will  say:  "Like  you  I  loved  the  sun,  and  a 
woman,  and  the  good  things  of  life;  like  you  I 
meant  well  by  others;  I  had  no  wish  to  kill  any 
man;  no  wish  to  die.    But  I  was  told  that  it  was 

234 


FIRST   THOUGHTS   ON   THIS  WAR 

necessary.  I  was  told  that  unless  I  killed  as  many 
of  you  as  I  could,  my  country  would  suffer.  I 
don't  know  whether  in  my  heart  I  believed  what 
I  was  told,  but  I  did  know  that  I  should  feel  dis- 
graced if  I  did  not  take  rifle  and  sword  and  try 
to  kill  some  of  you;  I  knew,  too,  that  unless  I 
did,  they  would  shoot  me  for  a  deserter.  So  I 
went.  Nearly  all  the  time  that  I  was  marching, 
or  resting  dead  tired,  or  lying  in  the  trenches,  I 
thought:  'Shall  I  ever  see  home  again?  Let 
me  see  home  again!'  But  I  knew  that  my 
first  duty  was  to  kill  you,  so  that  you  should 
never  see  home  again.  I  did  not  want  to  kill 
you,  but  I  knew  I  had  to.  When  I  was  under 
fire  or  tired  or  hungry,  it  is  true  I  hated  you  so 
that  I  had  only  a  savage  wish  to  kill  you.  But 
when  it  was  over  I  had  an  ache  in  my  heart. 
We  used  to  sing  while  marching,  make  jokes, 
enjoy  the  feel  of  our  comrades'  shoulders  touching 
our  own,  say  to  ourselves:  'We're  fine  fellows, 
serving  our  country,  doing  our  duty!'  But  still 
the  ache  went  on  underneath,  very  deep,  as  if 
one  were  asleep  and  could  not  come  to  the  end  of 
a  bad  dream.  We  seldom  knew  what  our  bullets 
were  doing,  but  sometimes  we  came  to  fighting 
hand  to  hand.  The  first  time,  I  remember,  we 
had  advanced  through  a  wood  under  shell-fire, 
and  were  lying  down  at  the  edge.     I  had  that 

235 


THE  WAR 

ache  all  the  time  I  was  coming  through  the  wood; 
it  was  a  fine  day,  and  the  larches  smelled  sweet. 
But  when  I  saw  you  charging  down  on  us  with  the 
sun  gleaming  on  your  bayonets,  it  left  me;    I 
felt  weak  and  queer  down  the  backs  of  my  legs, 
wondering  which   of  you,   yelling   and   running 
toward  me,  would  plunge  his  steel  into  my  stom- 
ach.    Then  my  officer  shouted;    I   fired  once, 
twice,  three  times,  and  began  to  run  forward. 
If  I  had  not,  I  should  have  turned  and  fled.    I  did 
not  feel  savage,  but  I  knew  I  must  move  every 
bit  of  me  as  quick  as  I  could,  and  defend  myself 
and  stab.    Then  our  supports  came  through  the 
wood,  and  you  were  beaten.     My  bayonet  was 
bloody.    One  or  more  of  you  I  must  have  killed; 
I  had  been  brave,  we  had  won;  I  felt  excited  and 
yet  sick.    In  the  evening,  when  I  lay  down,  my 
ache  was  worse  than  ever.     All  my  life  I  had 
been  taught  that  to  kill  a  fellow  man  was  the 
worst  thing  man  can  do;  it  did  not  come  natural 
to  me  to  kill.    It  was  having  to  risk  my  life  so 
dear  to  me,  in  order  that  I  might  kill,  that  gave 
me  that  ache.    If  I  had  been  risking  it  trying  to 
save  you,  it  would  have  been  more  natural;    I 
should  not  have  ached  then !" 


236 


FIRST   THOUGHTS   ON  THIS  WAR 


8§ 

"The  glories  of  war!" 

Courage,  devotion,  endurance,  contempt  of 
death!  These  are  glories  that  the  unmartial 
may  not  deride.  Even  the  humblest  of  brave 
soldiers  is  a  hero,  for  all  that  his  heroism  coins 
the  misery  of  others;  but  what  does  the  soldier 
know,  see,  feel  of  the  real  "glories  of  war"? 
That  knowledge  is  confined  to  the  readers  of 
newspapers  and  books!  The  pressman,  the 
romancer,  the  historian  can  with  glowing  pen 
call  up  in  the  reader  a  feeling  that  war  is  glorious; 
that  there  is  something  in  itself  desirable  and  to 
be  admired  in  that  licensed  murder,  arson,  rob- 
bery, that  we  call  war.  Glorious  war!  Every 
penny  thrill  of  each  reader  of  the  newspaper, 
every  spasm  of  each  one  who  sees  armed  men 
passing,  or  hears  the  fifes  and  drums,  is  manu- 
factured out  of  blood  and  groans,  wrung  out  of  the 
torments  of  the  human  heart  and  the  torture  of 
human  flesh. 

When  I  read  in  the  paper  of  some  glorious  charge 
and  the  great  slaughter  of  the  enemy,  I  feel  a 
thrill  through  every  fibre.  It  is  grand,  it  is  splen- 
did! I  take  a  deep  breath  of  joy,  almost  of 
rapture.     Grand,   splendid!     That  there   should 

237 


THE   WAR 

be  lying,  with  their  faces  haggard  to  the  stars, 
hundreds,  thousands  of  men  like  myself,  better 
men  than  myself!  Hundreds,  thousands,  who 
loved  life  as  much  as  I;  whose  women  loved 
them  as  much  as  mine  love  me !  Grand,  splen- 
did !  That  the  blood  should  be  oozing  from 
them  into  grass  that  once  smelled  as  sweet  to 
them  as  it  does  to  me !  That  their  eyes,  which 
delighted  in  sunlight  and  beauty  as  much  as 
mine,  should  be  glazing  fast  with  death;  that 
their  mouths,  which  mothers  and  wives  and  chil- 
dren are  aching  to  kiss  again,  should  be  twisted 
into  gaps  of  horror!  Grand,  splendid!  That 
other  men,  no  more  savage  than  myself,  should 
have  strewn  them  there !  Grand,  splendid !  That 
in  thousands  of  far-off  houses  women,  children, 
and  old  men  will  soon  be  quivering  with  an- 
guished memories  of  those  lying  there  dead.  .  .  . 
Pressmen,  romancers,  historians — you  have 
given  me  a  noble  thrill  in  recounting  these  glories 
of  war ! 


9§ 

This  is  the  grand  defeat  of  all  Utopians,  dream- 
ers, poets,  philosophers,  idealists,  humanitarians, 
lovers  of  peace  and  the  arts;  bag  and  baggage 
they  are  thrown  out  of  a  world  that  has  for  a 

238 


FIRST  THOUGHTS   ON  THIS   WAR 

time  no  use  for  them.  To  the  despot,  the  bureau- 
crat, the  militarist,  the  man  of  affairs  they  have 
always  been  hateful.  They  are  soft,  yet  danger- 
ous, because  they  venture  to  hold  up  another 
flag  in  the  face  of  the  big  flag  of  force;  venture 
to  distract  men's  attention  from  dwelling  on  the 
beauty  of  its  size.  I  believe  solemnly  that  we 
English  have  had  to  join  this  carnival  of  force  to 
guard  democracy,  honour,  and  the  sanctity  of 
treaty  rights.  It  was  a  sacred  necessity;  let  us 
keep  it  sacred,  without  the  lothsome  reek  of  a 
satisfaction  that  peace,  humanism,  and  the  arts 
are  down,  and  the  country  once  more  showing 
the  stuff  of  which  it  is  made,  a  tusky  lover  of  a 
fight,  as  jealous  and  afraid  of  a  rival  as  ever. 

The  idealist  said  in  his  heart:  The  god  of  force 
is  dead,  or  dying.  He  has  been  proven  the  fool 
that  the  man  of  affairs  and  the  militarist  always 
said  he  was.  But  the  fools  of  this  world — gen- 
erally after  they  are  gone — have  a  way  of  moving 
men  which  the  wise  and  practical  believers  in 
force  have  not.  If  they  had  not  this  power  man 
would  still  be,  year  in,  year  out,  the  savage  that 
the  believers  in  force  have  for  the  moment  once 
more  made  him.  The  battle  between  the  god  of 
love  and  the  god  of  force  endures  for  ever.  Fools 
of  the  former  camp,  drummed  out  and  beaten  to 
their  knees,  in  due  time  will  get  up  again  and 

239 


THE   WAU 

plant  their  poor  flag  a  little  farther  on.  "All  men 
shall  be  brothers/'  said  the  German  fool,  Schiller; 
so  shall  the  fools  say  again  when  the  time  comes; 
and  again,  and  again,  after  every  beating ! 


10  § 

Last  night,  when  the  half-moon  was  golden 
and  the  white  stars  very  high,  I  saw  the  souls  of 
the  killed,  passing.  They  came  riding  through 
the  dark;  some  on  gray  horses,  some  on  black; 
they  came  marching,  white-faced;  hundreds,  thou- 
sands, tens  of  thousands. 

The  night  smelled  sweet,  the  breeze  rustled, 
the  stream  murmured;  and  past  me  on  the  air 
the  souls  of  the  killed  came  marching.  They 
seemed  of  one  great  company,  no  longer  enemies. 
All  had  the  same  fixed  stare,  braving  something 
strange  that  they  were  trying  terribly  to  push 
away.  All  had  their  eyes  narrowed,  yet  fixed-open 
in  their  gray-white,  smoke-grimed  faces.  They 
made  no  sound  as  they  passed.  Whence  were 
they  coming,  where  going,  trailing  the  ghosts  of 
guns,  riding  the  ghosts  of  horses;  into  what  river 
of  oblivion — far  from  horror  and  the  savagery  of 
man! 

They  passed.     The  golden  half-moon  shone, 

240 


FIRST  THOUGHTS   ON   THIS   WAR 

and  the  high  white  stars.  The  fields  smelled  sweet ; 
the  wind  gently  stirred  the  trees.  The  moon  and 
stars  would  be  shining  over  the  battle-fields,  the 
wind  rustling  the  trees  there,  the  earth  sleeping 
in  dark  beauty.  So  would  it  be,  all  over  the 
Western  world.  The  peace  of  God  doth  indeed 
pass  our  understanding ! 


241 


THE  HOPE  OF  LASTING  PEACE 

(From  a  Symposium  on  Nationality,  1915) 

In  these  times  one  dread  lies  heavy  on  heart 
and  brain — the  thought  that  after  all  the  unim- 
aginable suffering,  waste,  and  sacrifice  of  this 
war  nothing  may  come  of  it,  no  real  relief,  no 
permanent  benefit  to  Europe,  no  improvement  to 
the  future  of  mankind. 

The  pronouncements  of  publicists:  "This  must 
never  happen  again,"  "Conditions  for  abiding 
peace  must  be  secured,"  "The  United  States  of 
Europe  must  be  founded,"  "Militarism  must 
cease" — all  such  are  the  natural  outcome  of  this 
dread.  They  are  proclamations  admirable  in 
sentiment  and  intention.  But  human  nature  be- 
ing what  it  has  been  and  is  likely  to  remain,  we 
must  face  the  possibility  that  nothing  will  come 
of  the  war,  save  the  restoration  of  Belgium  (that, 
at  least,  is  certain) ;  some  alterations  of  boundaries; 
a  long  period  of  economic  and  social  trouble  more 
bitter  than  before;  a  sweeping  moral  reaction 
after  too  great  effort.  Cosmically  regarded,  this 
war  is  a  debauch  rather  than  a  purge,  and  de- 
bauches have  always  to  be  paid  for. 

Confronting  the  situation  in  this  spirit,  we  shall 

242 


THE   HOPE   OF   LASTING   PEACE 

be  the  more  rejoiced  if  any  of  our  wider  hopes 
should  by  good  fortune  be  attained. 

Leaving  aside  the  restoration  of  Belgium — for 
what  do  we  continue  to  fight?  We  go  on,  as  we 
began,  because  we  all  believe  in  our  own  coun- 
tries and  what  they  stand  for.  And  in  considering 
how  far  the  principle  of  nationality  should  be 
exalted,  one  must  remember  that  it  is  in  the  main 
responsible  for  the  present  state  of  things.  In 
truth,  the  principle  of  nationality  of  itself  and  by 
itself  is  a  quite  insufficient  ideal.  It  is  a  mere 
glorification  of  self  in  a  world  full  of  other  selves; 
and  only  of  value  in  so  far  as  it  forms  part  of  that 
larger  ideal,  an  international  ethic,  which  admits 
the  claims  and  respects  the  aspirations  of  all  na- 
tions. Without  that  ethic  little  nations  are  (as 
at  the  present  moment)  the  prey — and,  accord- 
ing to  the  naked  principle  of  nationality,  the 
legitimate  prey — of  bigger  nations.  Germany 
absorbed  Schleswig,  Alsace-Lorraine,  and  now 
Belgium,  by  virtue  of  nationalism,  of  an  over- 
weening belief  in  the  perfection  of  its  national  self. 
Austria  would  subdue  Serbia  from  much  the  same 
feeling.  France  does  not  wish  to  absorb  or  sub- 
due any  European  people  of  another  race,  because 
France,  as  ever,  a  little  in  advance  of  her  age,  is 
already  grounded  in  this  international  ethic,  of 
solid  respect  for  the  rights  of  all  nations  which 

243 


THE  WAR 

belong,  broadly  speaking,  to  the  same  stage  of  de- 
velopment. The  same  may  now  be  said  of  the  other 
Western  democratic  powers,  Britain  and  America, 
"To  live  and  let  live/'  "To  dwell  together  in 
unity,"  are  the  guiding  maxims  of  the  interna- 
tional ethic,  by  virtue  of  which  alone  have  the 
smaller  communities  of  men — the  Belgiums,  Bo- 
hemias, Polands,  Serbias,  Denmarks,  Irelands, 
Switzerlands  of  Europe — any  chance  of  security 
in  the  maintenance  of  their  national  existences. 
In  short,  the  principle  of  nationality,  unless  it  is 
prepared  to  serve  this  international  ethic,  is  but 
a  frank  abettor  of  the  devilish  maxim:  "Might  is 
right."  All  this  is  truism;  but  truisms  are  often 
the  first  things  we  forget. 

The  whole  question  of  nationality  in  Europe 
bristles  with  difficulties.  It  cannot  be  solved  by 
theory  and  rule  of  thumb.  What  is  a  nation? 
Shall  it  be  determined  by  speech,  by  blood,  by 
geographical  boundary,  by  historic  tradition? 
The  freedom  and  independence  of  a  country  can 
and  ever  should  be  assured  when  with  one  voice 
it  demands  the  same.  It  is  seldom  so  simple  as 
that.  Belgium,  no  doubt,  is  as  one  man  in  that 
demand.  Poland  as  one  man  in  so  far  as  the 
Poles  are  concerned,  but  what  of  the  Austrians, 
Russians,  Germans  settled  among  them?  What 
of  Ireland  split  into  two  camps?    What  of  the 

244 


THE  HOPE  OF  LASTING  PEACE 

Germans  in  Bohemia;  in  Alsace;  in  Schleswig? 
Compromise  alone  is  possible  in  many  cases, 
going  by  favour  of  majority.  And  there  will 
always  remain  the  very  poignant  question  of  the 
rights  and  aspirations  of  the  minorities.  Let  us 
by  all  means  clear  the  air  by  righting  glaring 
wrongs,  removing  palpable  anomalies,  redressing 
obvious  injustices,  securing  so  far  as  possible  the 
independent  national  life  of  homogeneous  groups; 
but  let  us  not,  dazzled  by  the  glamour  of  a  word, 
dream  that  by  restoring  a  few  landmarks,  alter- 
ing a  few  boundaries,  and  raising  a  paean  to  the 
word  nationality,  we  can  banish  all  clouds  from 
the  sky  of  Europe  and  muzzle  the  ambitions  of 
the  stronger  nations. 

In  my  belief  the  best  hope  for  lasting  peace, 
the  chief  promise  of  security  for  the  rights  and 
freedom  of  little  countries,  the  most  reasonable 
guarantee  of  international  justice  and  general 
humanity,  lies  in  the  gradual  growth  of  democ- 
racy, of  rule  by  consent  of  the  governed.  When 
Europe  is  all  democratic,  and  its  civilisation  on 
one  plane — instead  of  as  now  on  two — then  and 
then  only  we  shall  begin  to  draw  the  breath  of 
real  assurance.  Then  only  will  the  little  coun- 
tries sleep  quietly  in  their  beds.  It  is  conceiv- 
able, nay,  probable,  that  an  ideal  autocracy  could 
achieve  more  good  for  its  country  and  for  the 

245 


THE  WAR 

world  at  large  in  a  given  time  than  the  rule  of  the 
most  enlightened  democracy.  It  is  certain  that 
ideal  autocracies  hold  sway  but  once  in  a  blue 
moon. 

If  proof  be  needed  that  the  prevalence  of  de- 
mocracy will  end  aggression  among  nations  that 
belong  to  the  same  stage  of  development,  secure 
the  rights  of  small  peoples,  foster  justice  and 
humaneness  in  man — let  the  history  of  this  last 
century  and  a  half  be  well  and  not  superficially 
examined,  and  let  the  human  probabilities  be 
weighed.  Which  is  the  more  likely  to  advocate 
wars  of  aggression?  They,  who  by  age,  position, 
wealth,  are  secure  against  the  daily  pressure  of 
life,  they  who  have  passed  their  time  out  of  touch 
with  the  struggle  for  existence,  in  an  atmosphere 
of  dreams,  ambitions,  and  power  over  other  men? 
Or  they  who  every  hour  are  reminded  how  hard 
life  is,  even  at  its  most  prosperous  moments,  who 
have  nothing  to  gain  by  war,  and  all,  even  life, 
to  lose;  who  by  virtue  of  their  own  struggles  have 
a  deep  knowledge  of  the  struggles  of  their  fellow 
creatures;  an  instinctive  repugnance  to  making 
those  struggles  harder;  who  have  heard  little  and 
dreamed  less  of  those  so-called  "national  inter- 
ests," that  are  so  often  mere  chimeras;  who  love, 
no  doubt,  in  their  inarticulate  way,  the  country 
where  they  were  born  and  the  modes  of  life  and 

246 


THE  HOPE  OF  LASTING  PEACE 

thought  to  which  they  are  accustomed,  but  know 
of  no  traditional  and  artificial  reasons  why  the 
men  of  other  countries  should  not  be  allowed  to 
love  their  own  lands  and  modes  of  thought  and 
life  in  equal  peace  and  security? 

Assuredly,  the  latter  of  these  two  kinds  of  men 
are  the  less  likely  to  favour  ambitious  projects 
and  aggressive  wars.  According  as  "the  people," 
through  their  representatives,  have  or  have  not 
the  final  decision  in  such  matters,  the  future  of 
Europe  shall  be  made  of  war  or  peace,  of  respect 
or  of  disregard  for  the  rights  of  little  nations. 

It  is  advanced  against  democracies  that  the 
workers  of  a  country,  ignorant  and  provincial 
in  outlook,  have  no  grasp  of  international  politics. 
True — in  a  Europe  where  national  ambitions 
and  dreams  are  still  for  the  most  part  hatched 
and  nurtured  in  nests  perched  high  above  the 
real  needs  and  sentiments  of  the  simple  working 
folk  who  form  nine-tenths  of  the  population  in 
each  country.  But  once  those  nests  of  aggres- 
sive nationalism  have  fallen  from  their  high  trees, 
so  soon  as  all  Europe  conforms  to  the  principle 
of  rule  by  consent  of  the  governed,  it  will  be 
found — as  it  has  already  been  found  in  France 
and  in  this  country — that  the  general  sense  of 
the  community  informed  by  growing  publicity 
(through  means  of  communication  ever  speeding 

247 


THE  WAR 

up)  is  quite  sufficient  trustee  of  national  safety; 
quite  able,  even  enthusiastically  able,  to  defend 
its  country  from  attack. 

It  is  said  that  democracies  are  liable  to  be  swept 
by  gusts  of  passion,  in  danger  of  yielding  to  press 
or  mob  sentiment.  But  are  not  the  peoples  of 
democratic  countries  as  firmly  counselled  and 
held  in  check  by  their  responsible  ministers  and 
elected  representatives  as  are  the  peoples  of 
autocratically  governed  countries?  What  power 
of  initiative  have  "the  people"  in  either  case? 
They  act  only  through  their  leaders.  But  their 
leaders  are  elected — that  is  the  point. 

There  are  just  these  real  differences,  however: 
Representative  governments  must  answer  for  their 
initiative  to  their  fellow  men.  Autocratic  govern- 
ments need  only  answer  to  their  gods.  The  eyes 
of  representative  governments  are  turned  habitu- 
ally inward  toward  the  condition  of  "the  people" 
whom  they  represent.  The  eyes  of  autocratic 
governments  may  indeed  be  turned  inward,  but 
what  they  usually  see  of  "the  people"  whom 
they  do  not  represent  is  liable  to  make  them  turn 
outward.  In  other  words,  they  find  in  successful 
foreign  adventure  and  imperialism  a  potent  safe- 
guard against  internal  troubles. 

The  problem  before  the  world  at  the  end  of 
this  war  is  how  to  eliminate  the  virus  of  an  ag- 

248 


THE  HOPE  OF  LASTING  PEACE 

gressive  nationalism  that  will  lead  to  fresh  out- 
bursts of  death.  It  is  a  problem  that  I,  for  one, 
fear  will  beat  the  powers  and  good-will  of  all,  un- 
less there  should  come  a  radical  change  of  govern- 
ments in  Central  Europe;  unless  the  real  power 
in  Germany  and  Austria-Hungary  passes  into  the 
hands  of  the  people  of  those  countries,  through 
their  elected  representatives,  as  already  it  has 
passed  in  France  and  Britain.  This  is  in  my  belief 
the  only  chance  for  the  defeat  of  militarism,  of 
that  raw  nationalism,  which,  even  if  beaten  down 
at  first,  will  ever  be  lying  in  wait,  preparing  secret 
revenge  and  fresh  attacks.  How  this  democrati- 
sation  of  Central  Europe  can  be  brought  about  I 
cannot  tell.  It  is  far  off  as  yet.  But  if  this  be 
not  at  long  last  the  outcome  of  the  war,  we  may 
still,  I  fear,  talk  in  vain  of  the  rights  of  little  na- 
tions, of  peace,  disarmament,  of  chivalry,  justice, 
and  humanity.  We  may  whistle  for  a  changed 
Europe. 


249 


DIAGNOSIS   OF   THE  ENGLISHMAN 

(From  the  Amsterdamer  Revue,  1915) 

After  many  months  of  war;  search  for  the  cause 
thereof  borders  on  the  academic.  Comment  on 
the  physical  facts  of  the  situation  does  not  come 
within  the  scope  of  one  who  by  disposition  and 
training  is  concerned  with  states  of  mind. 

But  as  to  the  result!  The  period  of  surprise 
is  over;  the  forces  known;  the  issue  fully  joined. 
It  is  now  a  case  of  "Pull  devil, pull  baker!"  and 
a  question  of  the  fibre  of  the  combatants.  For 
this  reason  it  may  not  be  amiss  to  try  to  present 
to  any  whom  it  may  concern  as  detached  a  pic- 
ture as  one  can  of  the  real  nature  of  that  com- 
batant who  is  called  the  Englishman.  Ignorance 
in  Central  Europe  of  his  character  tipped  the  bal- 
ance in  favour  of  war,  and  speculation  as  to  the 
future  is  useless  without  right  comprehension  of 
his  nature. 

The  Englishman  is  taken  advisedly,  because  he 
represents  four-fifths  of  the  population  of  the 
British  Isles. 

And  first  let  it  be  said  that  there  is  no  more 
unconsciously  deceptive  person  on  the  face  of  the 

250 


DIAGNOSIS  OF  THE  ENGLISHMAN 

globe.  The  Englishman  does  not  know  himself; 
outside  England  he  is  but  guessed  at. 

Racially  the  Englishman  is  so  complex  and  so 
old  a  blend,  that  no  one  can  say  what  he  is.  In 
character  he  is  just  as  complex.  Physically,  there 
are  two  main  types;  one  inclining  to  length  of 
limb,  narrowness  of  face  and  head  (you  will  see 
nowhere  such  long  and  narrow  heads  as  in  our 
islands)  and  bony  jaws;  the  other  approximat- 
ing more  to  the  ordinary  'John  Bull.'  The  first 
type  is  gaining  on  the  second.  There  is  little  or 
no  difference  in  the  main  character  behind. 

In  attempting  to  understand  the  real  nature 
of  the  Englishman,  certain  salient  facts  must  be 
borne  in  mind. 

The  Sea.  To  be  surrounded  generation  after 
generation  by  the  sea  has  developed  in  him  a 
suppressed  idealism,  a  peculiar  impermeability, 
a  turn  for  adventure,  a  faculty  for  wandering, 
and  for  being  sufficient  unto  himself,  in  far  and 
awkward  surroundings. 

The  Climate.  Whoso  weathers  for  centuries 
a  climate  that,  though  healthy  and  never  extreme, 
is,  perhaps,  the  least  reliable  and  one  of  the  wettest 
in  the  world,  must  needs  grow  in  himself  a  counter- 
balance of  dry  philosophy,  a  defiant  humour,  an 
enforced  medium  temperature  of  soul.  The  Eng- 
lishman is  no  more  given  to  extremes  than  is  his 

251 


THE   WAR 

climate;  against  its  damp  and  perpetual  changes 
he  has  become  coated  with  a  sort  of  blunt- 
ness. 

The  Political  Age  of  His  Country.  This 
is  by  far  the  oldest  settled  Western  Power,  po- 
litically speaking.  For  eight  hundred  and  fifty 
years  England  has  known  no  serious  military  dis- 
turbance from  without;  for  nearly  two  hundred 
she  has  known  no  serious  political  turmoil  within. 
This  is  partly  the  outcome  of  her  isolation,  partly 
the  happy  accident  of  her  political  constitution, 
partly  the  result  of  the  Englishman's  habit  of  look- 
ing before  he  leaps,  which  comes,  no  doubt,  from 
the  climate,  and  the  mixture  of  his  blood.  This 
political  stability  has  been  a  tremendous  factor 
in  the  formation  of  English  character,  has  given 
the  Englishman  of  all  ranks  a  certain  deep,  slow 
sense  of  form  and  order,  an  ingrained  culture — if 
one  may  pirate  the  word — that  makes  no  show, 
being  in  the  bones  of  the  man  as  it  were. 

The  Great  Preponderance  for  Several 
Generations  of  Town  Over  Country  Life. 
Taken  in  conjunction  with  centuries  of  political 
stability,  this  is  the  main  cause  of  a  growing, 
inarticulate  humaneness,  of  which — speaking  not 
with  the  voice  of  the  Press — the  Englishman  ap- 
pears to  be  rather  ashamed. 

The  Public  Schools.    This  potent  element  in 

252 


DIAGNOSIS   OF   THE   ENGLISHMAN 

the  formation  of  the  modern  Englishman,  not 
only  in  the  upper  but  of  all  classes,  is  something 
that  one  rather  despairs  of  making  understood — 
in  countries  which  have  no  similar  institution. 
But:  Imagine  one  hundred  thousand  youths  of 
the  wealthiest,  healthiest,  and  most  influential 
classes,  passed,  during  each  generation,  at  the 
most  impressionable  age,  into  a  sort  of  ethical 
mould,  emerging  therefrom  stamped  to  the  core 
with  the  impress  of  an  uniform  morality,  uniform 
manners,  uniform  way  of  looking  at  life;  remem- 
bering always  that  these  youths  fill  seven-eighths 
of  the  important  positions  in  the  professional 
administration  of  their  country  and  the  conduct 
of  its  commercial  enterprise;  remembering,  too, 
that  through  perpetual  contact  with  every  other 
class,  their  standard  of  morality  and  way  of 
looking  at  life  filters  down  into  the  very  toes  of 
the  land.  This  great  character-forming  machine 
is  remarkable  for  an  unself-consciousness  which 
gives  it  enormous  strength  and  elasticity.  Not 
inspired  by  the  state,  it  inspires  the  state.  The 
characteristics  of  the  philosophy  it  enjoins  are 
mainly  negative,  and,  for  that,  the  stronger. 
"Never  show  your  feelings — to  do  so  is  not  manly, 
and .  bores  your  fellows.  Don't  ciy  out  when 
you're  hurt,  making  yourself  a  nuisance  to  other 
people.    Tell  no  tales  about  your  companions,  and 

253 


THE   WAR 

no  lies  about  yourself.  Avoid  all  'swank/  'side/ 
'swagger/  braggadocio  of  speech  or  manner,  on 
pain  of  being  laughed  at."  (This  maxim  is  carried 
to  such  a  pitch  that  the  Englishman,  except  in 
his  press,  habitually  understates  everything.) 
"Think  little  of  money,  and  speak  less  of  it. 
Play  games  hard,  and  keep  the  rules  of  them, 
even  when  your  blood  is  hot  and  you  are  tempted 
to  disregard  them.  In  three  words:  Play  the 
Game" — a  little  phrase  which  may  be  taken  as 
the  characteristic  understatement  of  the  modern 
Englishman's  creed  of  honour,  in  all  classes. 
This  great,  unconscious  machine  has  great  defects. 
It  tends  to  the  formation  of  "caste";  it  is  a  poor 
teacher  of  sheer  learning;  and,  aesthetically,  with 
its  universal  suppression  of  all  interesting  and 
queer  individual  traits  of  personality — it  is  almost 
horrid.  Yet  it  imparts  a  remarkable  incorrupti- 
bility to  English  life;  it  conserves  vitality,  by 
suppressing  all  extremes;  and  it  implants  every- 
where a  kind  of  unassuming  stoicism  and  respect 
for  the  rules  of  the  great  game — Life.  Through 
its  unconscious  example,  and  through  its  cult  of 
games,  it  has  vastly  influenced  even  the  classes 
not  directly  under  its  control. 

Three  more  main  facts  must  be  borne  in  mind: 
Essential  Democracy  of  Government. 
Freedom  of  Speech  and  the  Press. 

254 


DIAGNOSIS   OF  THE   ENGLISHMAN 

Absence  Hitherto  of  Compulsory  Mili- 
tary Service. 

These,  the  outcome  of  the  quiet  and  stable 
home  life  of  an  island  people,  have  done  more 
than  anything  to  make  the  Englishman  a  decep- 
tive personality  to  the  outside  "eye.  He  has  for 
centuries  been  licensed  to  grumble.  There  is 
no  such  confirmed  grumbler — until  he  really  has 
something  to  grumble  at;  and  then,  no  one  per- 
haps who  grumbles  less.  There  is  no  such  con- 
firmed carper  at  the  condition  of  his  country,  yet 
no  one  really  so  profoundly  convinced  that  it  is 
the  best  in  the  world.  A  stranger  might  well 
think  from  his  utterances  that  he  was  spoiled  by 
the  freedom  of  his  life,  unprepared  to  sacrifice 
anything  for  a  land  in  such  a  condition.  Threaten 
that  country,  and  with  it  his  liberty,  and  you  will 
find  that  his  grumbles  have  meant  less  than 
nothing.  You  will  find,  too,  that  behind  the  ap- 
parent slackness  of  every  arrangement  and  every 
individual,  are  powers  of  adaptability  to  facts, 
elasticity,  practical  genius,  a  spirit  of  competition 
amounting  almost  to  disease,  and  a  determina- 
tion that  are  staggering.  Before  this  war  began, 
it  was  the  fashion  among  a  number  of  English 
to  lament  the  decadence  of  the  race.  These 
very  grumblers  are  now  foremost  in  praising  the 
spirit    shown   in    every   part    of    their    country. 

255 


THE   WAR 

Their  lamentations,  which  plentifully  deceived 
the  outside  ear,  were  just  English  grumbles; 
for  if,  in  truth,  England  had  been  decadent, 
there  could  have  been  no  such  universal  display 
for  them  to  be  praising  now.  All  this  democratic 
grumbling,  and  habit  of  "going  as  you  please," 
serve  a  deep  purpose.  Autocracy,  censorship, 
compulsion  destroy  humour  in  a  nation's  blood 
and  elasticity  in  its  fibre;  they  cut  at  the  very 
mainsprings  of  national  vitality.  Only  if  reason- 
ably free  from  control  can  a  man  really  arrive  at 
what  is  or  is  not  national  necessity;  and  truly 
identify  himself  with  a  national  ideal,  by  simple 
conviction  from  within. 

Two  words  of  caution  to  strangers  trying  to 
form  an  estimate  of  the  Englishman:  He  must 
not  be  judged  from  his  press,  which,  manned 
(with  certain  exceptions)  by  those  who  are  not 
typically  English,  is  much  too  highly  coloured  to 
illustrate  the  true  English  spirit;  nor  can  he  be 
judged  from  his  literature.  The  Englishman  is 
essentially  inexpressive,  unexpressed.  Further, 
he  must  not  be  judged  by  the  evidence  of  his 
wealth.  England  may  be  the  richest  country  in 
the  world  per  head  of  population,  but  not  five 
per  cent  of  that  population  have  any  wealth  to 
speak  of,  certainly  not  enough  to  have  affected 
their   hardihood;    and,    with   inconsiderable   ex- 

256 


DIAGNOSIS   OF  THE   ENGLISHMAN 

ceptions,  those  who  have  enough  are  brought  up 
to  worship  hardihood.  For  the  vast  proportion 
of  Englishmen,  active  military  service  is  merely 
a  change  from  work  as  hard,  and  even  more 
monotonous. 

From  these  main  premises,  then,  we  come  to 
what  the  Englishman  really  is. 

When,  after  months  of  travel,  one  returns  to 
England,  he  can  taste,  smell,  and  feel  the  dif- 
ference in  the  atmosphere,  physical  and  moral — 
the  curious,  damp,  blunt,  good-humoured,  happy- 
go-lucky,  old-established,  slow-seeming  formless- 
ness of  everything.  You  hail  a  porter;  if  you 
tell  him  you  have  plenty  of  time — he  muddles 
your  things  amiably,  with  an  air  of  "It'll  be  all 
right,"  till  you  have  only  just  time.  But  if  you 
tell  him  you  have  no  time — he  will  set  himself  to 
catch  that  train  for  you,  and  catch  it  faster  than 
a  porter  of  any  other  country.  Let  no  foreigner, 
however,  experiment  to  prove  the  truth  of  this, 
for  a  porter — like  any  other  Englishman — is  in- 
capable of  taking  a  foreigner  seriously  (after  a 
year  of  war  he  had  not  even  yet  taken  the  Germans 
seriously) ;  and  quite  friendly,  but  a  little  pitying, 
will  lose  him  the  train,  assuring  the  unfortunate 
that  he  can't  possibly  know  what  train  he  wants 
to  catch. 

The  Englishman  must  have  a  thing  brought 

257 


THE   WAR 

under  his  nose  before  he  will  act;  bring  it  there 
and  he  will  go  on  acting  after  everybody  else  has 
stopped.  He  lives  very  much  in  the  moment, 
because  he  is  essentially  a  man  of  facts  and  not  a 
man  of  imagination.  Want  of  imagination  makes 
him,  philosophically  speaking,  rather  ludicrous; 
in  practical  affairs  it  handicaps  him  at  the  start; 
but  once  he  has  "got  going" — as  we  say — it  is 
of  incalculable  assistance  to  his  stamina.  The 
Englishman,  partly  through  this  lack  of  imagina- 
tion and  nervous  sensibility,  partly  through  his 
inbred  dislike  of  extremes,  and  habit  of  mini- 
mising the  expression  of  everything,  is  a  perfect 
example  of  the  conservation  of  energy.  It  is 
very  difficult  to  come  to  the  end  of  him.  Add  to 
this,  his  unimaginative  practicality  and  tenacious 
moderation,  his  inherent  spirit  of  competition — 
not  to  say  pugnacity — so  strong  that  it  will  often 
show  through  the  coating  of  his  '  Take  it  or  leave 
it/  half -surly,  half-good-humoured  manner — a 
spirit  of  competition  so  extreme  that  it  makes 
him,  as  it  were,  patronise  Fate;  add  a  peculiar, 
ironic,  'don't  care'  sort  of  humour;  an  under- 
ground humaneness,  and  an  ashamed  idealism — 
and  you  get  some  notion  of  the  pudding  of  Eng- 
lish character.  It  has  a  kind  of  terrible  coolness, 
a  rather  awful  level-headedness — by  no  means 
reflected  in  his  press.     The  Englishman  makes 

258 


DIAGNOSIS   OF  THE  ENGLISHMAN 

constant  small  blunders;  but  few,  almost  no, 
deep  mistakes.  He  is  a  slow  starter,  but  there 
is  no  stronger  finisher,  because  he  has  by  tem- 
perament and  training  the  faculty  of  getting 
through  any  job  he  gives  his  mind  to  with  a 
minimum  expenditure  of  vital  energy;  nothing 
is  wasted  in  expression,  style,  spread-eagleism; 
everything  is  instinctively  kept  as  near  to  the 
practical  heart  of  the  matter  as  possible.  He  is 
— to  the  eyes  of  an  artist — distressingly  matter- 
of-fact,  a  tempting  mark  for  satire.  And  yet  he 
is  at  bottom  an  idealist;  though  it  is  his  nature  to 
snub,  disguise,  and  mock  his  own  inherent  opti- 
mism. To  admit  enthusiasm  is  "bad  form"  if  he 
is  a  "gentleman";  and  "swank,"  or  mere  waste 
of  good  heat,  if  he  is  not  a  "gentleman."  Eng- 
land produces  more  than  its  proper  percentage 
of  cranks  and  poets;  this  is  Nature's  way  of  re- 
dressing the  balance  in  a  country  where  feelings 
are  not  shown,  sentiments  not  expressed,  and  ex- 
tremes laughed  at.  Not  that  the  Englishman 
is  cold,  as  is  generally  supposed — on  the  con- 
trary, he  is  warm-hearted  and  feels  strongly; 
but  just  as  peasants,  for  lack  of  words  to  ex- 
press their  feelings,  become  stolid,  so  does  the 
Englishman,  from  sheer  lack  of  the  habit  of  self- 
expression.  The  Englishman's  proverbial  'hypoc- 
risy'— that  which  I  myself  have  dubbed  his  'is- 

259 


THE   WAR 

land  Pharisaism ' — comes  chiefly,  I  think,  from  his 
latent  but  fearfully  strong  instinct  for  competi- 
tion, which  will  not  let  him  admit  himself  beaten 
or  in  the  wrong  even  to  himself;  and  from  an  in- 
grained sense  of  form  that  impels  him  always  to 
'save  his  face';  but  partly  it  comes  from  his  pow- 
erlessness  to  express  his  feelings.  He  has  not  the 
clear  and  fluent  cynicism  of  expansive  natures 
wherewith  to  confess  exactly  how  he  stands.  It 
is  the  habit  of  men  of  all  nations  to  want  to  have 
things  both,  ways;  the  Englishman  wants  it  both 
ways,  I  think,  more  strongly  than  any;  and  he  is 
unfortunately  so  unable  to  express  himself  even  to 
himself,  that  he  has  never  realised  this  truth, 
much  less  confessed  it — hence  his  '  hypocrisy.' 

He  is  sometimes  abused  for  being  over-attached 
to  money.  His  island  position,  his  early  dis- 
coveries of  coal,  iron,  and  processes  of  manufac- 
ture have  made  him,  of  course,  a  confirmed  in- 
dustrialist and  trader;  but  he  is  more  of  an 
adventurer  in  wealth  than  a  heaper-up  of  it. 
He  is  far  from  sitting  on  his  monej^bags — has 
no  vein  of  proper  avarice  (the  humble  English- 
man is  probably  the  least  provident  man  in  the 
world),  and  for  national  ends  he  will  spill  out  his 
money  like  water,  if  convinced  of  the  necessity. 

In  everything  it  comes  to  that  with  the  Eng- 
lishman— he  must  be  convinced;    and  he  takes 

260 


DIAGNOSIS   OF  THE   ENGLISHMAN 

a  lot  of  convincing.  He  absorbs  ideas  slowly; 
would  decidedly  rather  not  imagine  anything  till 
he  is  obliged;  but  in  proportion  to  the  slowness 
with  which  he  can  be  moved,  is  the  slowness  with 
which  he  can  be  removed !  Hence  the  symbol  of 
the  bulldog.  When  he  does  see  and  seize  a  thing, 
he  holds  fast. 

For  the  particular  situation  which  the  English- 
man has  now  to  face,  he  is  terribly  well  adapted. 
Because  he  has  so  little  imagination,  so  little 
power  of  expression,  he  is  saving  nerve  all  the 
time.  Because  he  never  goes  to  extremes,  he  is 
saving  energy  of  body  and  spirit.  That  the  men 
of  all  nations  are  about  equally  endowed  with 
courage  and  self-sacrifice,  has  been  proved  in 
these  last  six  months;  it  is  to  other  qualities 
that  one  must  look  for  final  victory  in  a  war  of 
exhaustion.  The  Englishman  does  not  look  into 
himself;  he  does  not  brood;  he  sees  no  further 
forward  than  is  necessary;  and  he  must  have  his 
joke.  These  are  fearful  and  wonderful  advan- 
tages. Examine  the  letters  and  diaries  of  the 
various  combatants,  and  you  will  see  how  far  less 
imaginative  and  reflecting  (though  often  shrewd, 
practical,  and  humorous)  the  English  are  than 
any  others;  you  will  gain,  too,  a  deep,  a  deadly 
conviction  that  behind  them  is  a  fibre  like  rub- 
ber, that  may  be  frayed  and  bent  a  little  this 

261 


THE   WAR 

way  and  that,  but  can  neither  be  permeated  nor 
broken. 

When  this  war  began,  the  Englishman  rubbed 
his  eyes  steeped  in  peace,  he  is  still  rubbing  them 
just  a  little,  but  less  and  less  every  day.  A  pro- 
found lover  of  peace  by  habit  and  tradition,  he 
has  actually  realised  by  now  that  he  is  'in  for  it' 
up  to  the  neck.  To  any  one  who  really  knows 
him — that  is  a  portent ! 

Let  it  be  freely ,  confessed  that  from  an 
aesthetic  point  of  view  the  Englishman,  devoid 
of  high  lights  and  shadows,  coated  with  drab, 
and  superhumanly  steady  on  his  feet,  is  not  too 
attractive.  But  for  the  wearing,  tearing,  slow, 
and  dreadful  business  of  this  war,  the  English- 
man— fighting  of  his  own  free  will,  unimagina- 
tive, humorous,  competitive,  practical,  never  in 
extremes,  a  dumb,  inveterate  optimist,  and  terri- 
bly tenacious — is  equipped  with  victory. 


262 


LITERATURE  AND  THE  WAR 

(From  the  Times  Literary  Supplement,  1915) 

For  the  purpose  of  the  following  speculations 
the  word  Literature  is  used  to  describe  the 
imaginative  work  of  artists  and  thinkers — that 
is,  of  writers  who  have  had,  and  will  have,  some- 
thing to  say  of  more  or  less  lasting  value;  it 
leaves  out  the  work  of  those  who,  for  various 
reasons,  such  as  patriotic  sentiment  or  the  sup- 
plying of  the  public  with  what  it  may  be  supposed 
to  want,  will  dish  up  the  war  as  a  matter  of  neces- 
sity, whether  serving  it  wholesale  in  eight  courses, 
or  merely  using  it  as  sauce  to  the  customary 
meat  and  fish. 

How  will  our  literature,  thus  defined,  be  af- 
fected by  the  war?    Will  it  be  affected  at  all? 

One  must  first  remember  that  to  practically 
all  imaginative  writers  of  any  quality  war  is  an 
excrescence  on  human  life,  a  monstrous  calamity 
and  evil.  The  fact  that  they  recognise  the  grue- 
some inevitability  of  this  war,  in  so  far  as  the  in- 
tervention of  our  country  is  concerned,  does  not 
in  any  way  lessen  their  temperamental  horror  of 
war  in  itself,  of  the  waste  and  the  misery,  and 
the  sheer  stupid  brutality  thereof. 

263 


THE  WAR 

The  nature  of  the  imaginative  artist  is  sensi- 
tive, impressionable;  impatient  of  anything  super- 
imposed; thinking  and  feeling  for  itself;  recoil- 
ing from  conglomerate  views  and  sentiment.  It 
regards  the  whole  affair  as  a  dreadful  though 
sacred  necessity,  to  be  got  through  somehow, 
lest  there  be  lost  that  humane  freedom  which  is 
the  life-blood  of  any  world  where  the  creative 
imagination  and  other  even  more  precious  things 
can  flourish.  The  point  is  that  there  is  no  glamour 
about  the  business — none  whatever,  for  this  par- 
ticular sort  of  human  being.  Writers  to  whom 
war  is  glamorous  (with  the  few  exceptions  that 
prove  the  rule)  are  not  those  who  produce  litera- 
ture. We  must  therefore  discount  at  once  proph- 
ecies that  the  war  will  lift  literature  on  to  an 
epic  plane,  cause  it  to  glow  and  blow  with  heroic 
deeds,  and  figures  eight  feet  high.  They  come 
from  those  who  do  not  know  the  temperament  of 
the  imaginative  artist,  his  fundamental  indepen- 
dence, and  habit  of  revolting  against  what  is  ex- 
pected of  him.  But  the  whole  thing  is  much  deeper 
than  that. 

It  seems  to  be  forgotten  by  some  who  write  on 
this  matter  that  the  producer  of  literature  has 
been  giving  of  his  best  in  the  past,  and  will  be 
able  to  do  no  more  in  the  future.  The  first  thing 
that  has  mattered  to  him  has  been  (in  the  words 

264 


LITERATURE  AND  THE  WAR 

of  de  Maupassant,  but  which  might  have  been 
those  of  any  other  first-rate  writer)  "to  make 
something  fine,  in  the  form  that  shall  best  suit 
him  according  to  his  temperament."  No  amount 
of  wars  can  vary  for  the  artist  that  ideal — as  it 
was  for  him,  so  it  will  be.  It  seems  also  to  be 
thought  that  the  war  has  been  a  startling  revela- 
tion to  the  imaginative  writer,  of  the  heroism  in 
human  nature.  This  is  giving  him  credit  for  very 
little  imagination.  The  constant  tragedies  of 
peace — miners  entombed,  sinking  liners,  volcanic 
eruptions,  outbreaks  of  pestilence,  together  with 
the  long  endurances  of  daily  life,  are  always  bring- 
ing home  to  any  sensitive  mind  the  inherent 
heroism  of  men  and  women.  The  veiy  glut  of 
heroism  in  this  war  is  likely,  as  it  were,  to  put  an 
artist's  nature  off,  to  blunt  the  edge  of  perceptions 
that  are  always  groping  after  fresh  sensation, 
that  must  be  always  groping,  in  order  that  expres- 
sion may  be  of  something  really  felt — for  novelty 
is,  of  all,  the  greatest  spur  to  sharp  feeling. 

The  top  notes  of  human  life  and  conduct  can 
be  but  sparingly  sung,  or  they  grate  on  the 
nerves  and  jar  the  hearing  of  the  singer  no  less 
than  of  his  listener.  By  some  mysterious  law 
frontal  attacks  to  capture  heroism  and  imprison 
it  in  art  are  almost  always  failures.  Few  of  the 
great  imagined  figures  of  literature  are  heroic. 

265 


THE  WAR 

* 

Another  thing  is  forgotten.  The  real  artist 
does  not  anticipate  and  certainly  cannot  regulate 
the  impulses  that  shall  move  his  brain  and  heart 
and  hand.  What  exactly  starts  him  off,  even  he 
cannot  tell.  He  will  never  write  heroics  to  the 
order  of  the  public. 

Ah!  but  he  will  now  be  influenced  uncon- 
sciously in  the  choice  of  subjects  by  sympathy 
with  the  fine  deeds  of  the  day,  a  lift  will  come 
into  his  work,  his  eyes  be  raised  to  the  stars! 
True,  perhaps,  for  the  moment;  but,  then,  such 
times  as  these  are  in  many  ways  unfavourable  to 
the  creative  instinct;  moreover,  they  will  leave 
in  restless,  sensitive  natures  lassitude,  recoil,  a 
sense  of  surfeit.  Quite  probably  the  war  may  pro- 
duce a  real  masterpiece  or  two  formed  out  of  its 
very  stuff,  by  some  eager  mind  innocent  hitherto 
of  creative  powers,  for  whom  actual  experience 
of  the  sights  and  feelings  of  war  may  be  a  baptism 
into  art.  Almost  certainly  there  will  come  of  it 
a  masterpiece  or  two  of  satire.  But,  generally 
speaking,  this  welter  of  sacrifice  and  suffering, 
the  sublimity  and  horror  of  these  days,  their 
courage  and  their  cruelty,  are  enveloping  the 
writer  like  the  breath  of  a  sirocco,  whirling  his 
brain  and  heart  around  at  the  moment,  but 
likely  to  leave  him  with  an  intense  longing  for  a 
deep  draught  of  peace  and  quiet,  scented  winds. 

266 


LITERATURE  AND  THE  WAR 

On  one  whose  whole  natural  life  is  woven,  not  of 
deeds,  but  of  thoughts  and  visions,  moods  and 
dreams,  all  this  intensely  actual  violence,  product 
of  utterly  different  natures  from  his  own,  off- 
spring of  men  of  action  and  affairs,  cannot  have 
the  permanent,  deepening,  clarifying  influence 
that  long  personal  experience  or  suffering  have 
had  on  some  of  the  world's  greatest  writers — on 
Milton  in  his  blindness;  on  Dostoyevsky,  re- 
prieved at  the  very  moment  of  death,  then  long 
imprisoned;  on  de  Maupassant  in  his  fear  of 
coming  madness;  on  Tolstoy,  in  the  life-struggle 
of  his  dual  nature;  on  Beethoven  in  his  deafness, 
and  Nietzsche  in  his  deadly  sickness.  It  is  from 
the  stuff  of  his  own  life  that  the  creative  writer 
moulds  out  for  the  world  something  fine,  in  the 
form  that  best  suits  him,  following  his  own  tem- 
perament. His  momentary  and,  perhaps,  intense 
identification  with  the  struggle  of  this  war  has  in 
it  something  spasmodic,  feverish,  and  almost 
false;  a  kind  of  deep  and  tragic  inconsistency.  It 
is  too  foreign  to  the  real  self  within  him.  At  one 
time  it  was  said  of  certain  new  troops:  "They're 
first-rate,  except  for  one  thing — they  will  not 
bayonet  the  Germans."  It  is  like  that  in  the 
artist-writer's  soul — with  the  work  of  his  hands, 
the  words  of  his  lips,  his  thoughts,  and  the  feel- 
ings of  his  heart,  he  identifies  himself  with  this 

267 


THE  WAR 

war  drama,  yet  in  the  very  depths  of  him  he  re- 
coils. What  would  you  have?  The  artist-man 
has  but  one  nature. 

For  all  these  reasons  the  war  is  likely  to  have 
little  deep  or  lasting  influence  on  literature. 
But  one  immediate  effect  it  may  surely  have. 
Let  who  will  snatch  a  moment  in  these  days  to 
be  with  Nature — let  him  go  into  a  wood,  or  walk 
down  the  Flower  walk  in  Kensington  Gardens, 
of  a  fine  afternoon.  On  the  still  birch-trees  a 
pigeon  will  be  sitting  motionless  among  the  gray 
twig  tracery;  the  cedar  branches  are  dark  and 
flat  on  the  air;  the  sun  warms  the  cheek  and 
brightens  the  cream  and  pink  chestnut  and 
maple  buds  just  opening;  the  waxy  hyacinths 
deepen  in  hue,  and  the  little  green  shoots  every- 
where swell  as  he  gazes.  A  sensation  of  delight 
begins  to  lift  his  heart,  he  takes  a  deep  breath; 
and  suddenly,  from  a  bench  he  hears:  "One  of 
'em's  alive  an'  two's  dead,"  Or:  "The  Germans 
are  movin'  'em!"  Gone  is  the  beginning  of  de- 
light. The  heavy  hand  comes  down  again.  No 
good!  There  is  no  spring!  The  sky  is  not 
bright.  The  heart  cannot  rejoice.  As  with  any 
man,  so,  and  even  more,  with  the  artist-writer. 
When  the  war  is  over  and  the  heavy  hand  lifted, 
his  heart  and  brain  will  rush  to  that  of  which  he 
has  been  deprived  too  long — will  rush  to  the  beauty 

268 


LITERATURE  AND  THE   WAR 

which,  for  sheer  pity  and  horror,  he  cannot  now 
enjoy,  will  rush  as  a  starved  and  thirsting  crea- 
ture. There  may  well  be  an  instant  outburst  of 
joyful  and  sensuous  imaginings;  a  painting  of 
beauty,  not  faked  but  really  felt,  by  brushes  at 
once  more  searching  and  yet  softer. 

And  very  likely,  too,  there  will  be  a  spurt  of 
zest  and  frankness,  as  from  men  who  have  been 
too  long  constrained  to  a  single  emotion  under 
the  spell  of  a  powerful  drug. 

One  more  thought  may  be  jotted  down.  Un- 
less the  national  unity  now  prevailing  lasts  on 
into  the  years  of  peace  that  follow,  the  country 
will  certainly  pass  through  great  internal  stress. 
That  stress  will  most  likely  have  a  more  intimate 
and  powerful  influence  upon  literature  than  the 
war  itself.  If  there  is  to  come  any  startling 
change,  it  should  be  five  or  ten  years  after  the 
war  rather  than  at  once. 


269 


ART  AND  THE  WAR 

(From  the  Atlantic  Monthly  and  Fortnightly  Review,  1915) 

Monsieur  Rodin — probably  the  greatest  living 
artist — has  lately  defined  art  as  the  pursuit  of 
beauty,  and  beauty  as '  the  expression  of  what  there 
is  best  in  man.'  ' Man/  he  says,  'needs  to  express 
in  a  perfect  form  of  art  all  his  intuitive  longings 
toward  the  Unknowable.'  His  words  may  serve 
as  warning  to  those  who  imagine  that  the  war  will 
loosen  one  root  of  the  tree  of  art — a  tree  which 
has  been  growing  slowly  since  first  soul  came  into 
men's  eyes. 

This  world  (as  all  will  admit)  is  one  of  the  in- 
numerable expressions  of  an  Unknowable  Creative 
Purpose,  which  colloquially  we  call  God;  that 
which  not  every  one  will  admit  is  that  this  Crea- 
tive Purpose  works  in  its  fashioning  not  only  of 
matter  but  of  what  we  call  spirit,  through  fric- 
tion, through  the  rubbing  together  of  the  noses, 
the  thoughts,  and  the  hearts  of  men.  While  the 
material  condition  of  our  planet — the  heat  or 
friction  within  it — remains  favourable  to  human 
life,  there  will,  there  must  needs  be,  a  continual 
crescendo  in  the  stature  of  humanity,  through 
the  ever-increasing  friction  of  human  spirits  one 

270 


ART  AND  THE  WAR 

with  the  other;  friction  supplied  by  life  itself 
and,  next  after  life,  by  those  transcripts  of  life, 
those  expressions  of  human  longing  which  we 
know  as  art.  Art  for  art's  sake — if  it  meant  what 
it  said,  which  is  doubtful — was  always  a  vain  and 
silly  cry.  As  well  contend  that  an  artist  is  not  a 
man.  Art  was  ever  the  servant  as  well  as  the 
mistress  of  men,  and  ever  will  be.  Civilisation, 
which,  after  all,  is  but  the  gradual  conversion  of 
animal  man  into  human  man,  has  come  about 
through  art  even  more  than  through  religion, 
law,  and  science.  For  the  achieved  'expression 
of  man's  intuitive  longing  toward  the  Unknow- 
able, in  more  or  less  perfect  .  .  .  forms  of  art' 
has  ever — after  life  itself — been  the  chief  influ- 
ence in  broadening  men's  hearts. 

The  aim  of  human  life  no  doubt  is  happiness. 
But,  after  all,  what  is  happiness?  Efficiency, 
wealth,  material  comfort?  Many  by  their  lives 
do  so  affirm;  few  are  cynical  enough  to  say  so; 
and  on  their  death-beds  none  will  feel  that  they 
are.  Not  even  freedom  in  itself  brings  happiness. 
Happiness  lies  in  breadth  of  heart.  And  breadth 
of  heart  is  that  inward  freedom,  which  has  the 
power  to  understand,  feel  with,  and,  if  need  be, 
help  others.  In  breadth  of  heart  are  founded 
justice,  love,  sacrifice;  without  it  there  would 
seem  no  special  meaning  to  any  of  our  efforts, 

271 


THE  WAR 

and  the  tale  of  all  human  life  would  still  be  no 
more  than  that  of  very  gifted  animals,  many  of 
whom  indeed  are  highly  efficient,  and  have  unity 
partly  instinctive,  partly  founded  on  experiences 
of  the  utility  thereof;  but  none  of  whom  have  that 
conscious  altruism  which  is  without  perception 
of  benefit  to  self,  and  works  from  sheer  recognition 
of  its  own  beauty.  In  sum,  human  civilisation  is 
the  growth  of  conscious  altruism;  and  the  direc- 
tive moral  purpose  in  the  world  nothing  but  our 
dim  perception,  ever  growing  through  spiritual 
friction,  that  we  are  all  bound  more  and  more 
toward  the  understanding  of  ourselves  and  each 
other,  and  all  that  this  carries  with  it.  To  imagine, 
then,  that  a  conflagration  like  this  war,  however 
vast  and  hellish,  will  do  aught  but  momentarily 
retard  the  crescendo  of  that  understanding,  is  to 
miss  perception  of  the  whole  slow  process  by 
which  man  has  become  less  and  less  an  animal 
throughout  the  ages;  and  to  fear  that  the  war 
will  scorch  and  wither  art,  that  chief  agent  of 
understanding,  is  either  to  identify  one's  self  with 
the  petty  and  eclectic  views  which  merely  pro- 
duce aesthetic  excrescences,  or  to  be  frankly  igno- 
rant of  what  art  means. 

Recognition  of  the  relativity  of  art  is  con- 
stantly neglected  by  those  who  talk  and  write 
about  it.    For  one  school  the  audience  does  not 

272 


ART  AND  THE  WAR 

exist;  for  another  nothing  but  the  audience. 
Obviously  neither  view  is  right.  Art  may  be 
very  naive  and  still  be  art — still  be  the  expression 
of  a  childish  vision  appealing  to  childish  visions, 
making  childish  hearts  beat.    Thus: 


*t> 


"Mary  had  a  little  lamb, 
Its  wool  was  white  as  snow, 
And  everywhere  that  Mary  went 
The  lamb  was  sure  to  go." 

is  art  to  the  child  of  five,  whose  heart  and  fancy 
it  affects.    And: 

"Tiger,  tiger,  burning  bright 
Through  the  forests  of  the  night —  I 
What  immortal  hand  and  eye 
Framed  thy  fearful  symmetry?" 

is  art  to  the  writer  and  the  reader  of  these  words. 
On  the  other  hand,  Tolstoy,  in  limiting  art  to 
such  of  it  as  might  be  understanded  of  simple  folk, 
served  his  purpose  of  attacking  the  extravagant 
dandyisms  of  aestheticism,  but  fell  lugubriously 
short  of  the  wide  truth.  The  essence  of  art  is 
the  power  of  communication  between  heart  and 
heart — Yes !  But  since  no  one  shall  say  to  human 
nature,  'Be  of  this  or  that  pattern/  or  to  the 
waves  of  human  understanding,  'Thus  far  and 
no  further,'  so  no  man  shall  say  these  things  to 
art. 

273 


THE  WAR 

Anybody  can  draw  a  tree,  but  few  can  draw  a 
tree  that  others  can  see  is  like  a  tree,  and  not  one 
in  a  million  can  convey  the  essential  spirit  of  tree. 
The  power  of  getting  over  the  footlights  to  some 
audience  or  other  is  clearly  necessary  before  a 
man  can  be  called  an  artist  by  any  but  himself. 
But  so  soon  as  he  has  established  genuine  con- 
nection between  his  creation  and  the  gratified 
perception  of  others,  he  is  making  art,  though  it 
may  be,  and  usually  is,  very  childish  art.     The 
point  to  grasp  is  this,  and   again   this:   Art  is 
rooted  in  life  for  its  inspiration,  and  dependent 
for  its  existence  as  art  on  affecting  other  human 
beings,  sooner  or  later.    The  statue,  the  picture, 
or  the  book  which,  having  been  given  a  proper 
chance,  has  failed  to  move  any  but  its  creators 
is  certainly  not  art.     It  does  not  follow  that  the 
artist  should  consider  his  public,  or  try  to  please 
others  than  his  own  best  self;   but  if,  in  pleasing 
his  best  self,  he  does  not  succeed  in  pleasing 
others,  in  the  past,  the  present,  or  the  future,  he 
will  certainly  not  have  produced  art.     Not,  of 
course,  that  the  size  of  his  public  is  proof  of  an 
artist's  merit.    The  public  for  all  time  is  generally 
but  a  small  public  at  any  given  moment.     Tol- 
stoy seems  to  have  forgotten  that,  and  to  have 
neglected  the  significance  attaching  to  the  quality 
of  a  public.    For,  if  the  essence  of  art  be  its  power 

274 


ART  AND  THE  WAR 

of  bridging  between  heart  and  heart  (as  he  ad- 
mitted) its  value  may  well  be  greater  if  at  first 
it  only  reaches  and  fertilises  the  hearts  of  other 
artists  rather  than  those  of  the  public,  for 
through  these  other  artists  it  sweeps  out  again 
in  further  circles  and  ripples  of  expression.  Art 
is  the  universal  traveller,  essentially  international 
in  influence.  Revealing  the  spirit  of  things  lying 
behind  parochial  surfaces  and  circumstances, 
delving  down  into  the  common  stuff  of  nature  and 
human  nature,  and,  recreating  therefrom,  it  passes 
ten  thousand  miles  of  space,  ten  thousand  years 
of  time,  and  yet  appeals  to  the  men  it  finds  on 
those  far  shores.  It  is  the  one  possession  of  a 
country  which  that  country's  enemies  usually 
still  respect  and  take  delight  in.  War — destruc- 
tive, outcome  of  the  side  of  man's  nature  which  is 
hostile  to  all  breadth  of  heart — can  for  the  mo- 
ment paralyse  the  outward  activities  of  art,  but 
can  it  ever  chain  its  spirit,  or  arrest  the  inner 
ferment  of  the  creative  instinct?  For  thousands 
of  generations  war  has  been  the  normal  state  of 
man's  existence,  yet  alongside  war  has  flourished 
art,  reflecting  man's  myriad  aspirations  and  long- 
ings, and  by  innumerable  expressions  of  individual 
vision  and  sentiment,  ever  unifying  human  life, 
through  the  common  factor  of  impersonal  emo- 
tion passing  from  heart  to  heart  by  ways  more 

275 


THE  WAR 

invisible  than  the  winds  travel,  carrying  the  seeds 
and  pollen  of  herb  life.  If  one  could  only  see  those 
countless  tenuous  bridges  spun  by  art,  a  dewy 
web  over  the  whole  lawn  of  life!  If  for  a  mo- 
ment we  could  see  them,  discouragement  would 
cease  its  uneasy  buzzing.  What  can  this  war  do 
that  a  million  wars  have  not?  It  is  bigger  and 
more  bloody — the  reaction  from  it  will  but  be 
the  greater.  If  every  work  of  art  existing  in  the 
Western  world  were  obliterated  and  every  artist 
killed,  would  human  nature  return  to  the  animal- 
ism from  which  art  has  in  a  measure  raised  it? 
Not  so.  Art  makes  good  in  the  human  soul  all 
the  positions  that  it  conquers. 

When  the  war  is  over,  the  world  will  find  that 
the  thing  which  has  changed  least  is  art.  There 
will  be  less  money  to  spend  on  it;  some  artists 
will  have  been  killed;  certain  withered  leaves, 
warts,  and  dead  branches  will  have  sloughed  off 
from  the  tree;  and  that  is  all.  The  wind  of  war 
reeking  with  death  will  neither  have  warped  nor 
poisoned  it.  The  utility  of  art,  which  in  these 
days  of  blood  and  agony  is  mocked  at,  will  be 
rising  again  into  the  view  even  of  the  mockers, 
almost  before  the  thunder  of  the  last  shell  has 
died  away.  'Beauty  is  useful/  says  Monsieur 
Rodin.    Ay !  it  is  useful ! 

Who  knows  whether  even  in  the  full  whirlwind 

276 


ART  AND  THE  WAR 

of  this  most  gigantic  struggle,  art  work  may  not 
be  produced  which,  in  sum  of  its  ultimate  effect 
on  mankind,  will  outlive  and  outweigh  the  total 
net  result  of  that  struggle,  just  as  the  work  of 
Euripides,  Shakespeare,  Leonardo,  Beethoven, 
and  Tolstoy  outweighed  the  net  result  of  the 
Peloponnesian,  sixteenth-centuiy,  Napoleonic,  and 
Crimean  wars.  War  is  so  unutterably  tragic, 
because — without  it — Nature,  given  time,  would 
have  attained  the  same  ends  in  other  ways.  A 
war  is  the  spasmodic  uprising  of  old  savage  in- 
stincts against  the  slow  and  gradual  humanising 
of  the  animal  called  man.  It  emanates  from  rest- 
less and  so-called  virile  natures  fundamentally 
intolerant  of  men's  progress  toward  the  under- 
standing of  each  other — natures  that  often  pro- 
fess a  blasphemous  belief  in  art,  a  blasphemous  al- 
liance with  God.  It  still  apparently  suffices  for 
a  knot  of  such  natures  to  get  together,  and  play 
on  mass  fears  and  loyalties,  to  set  a  continent 
on  fire.  And  at  the  end?  Those  of  us  who  are 
able  to  look  back  from  thirty  years  hence  on  this 
tornado  of  death — will  conclude  with  a  dreadful 
laugh  that  if  it  had  never  come,  the  state  of  the 
world  would  be  veiy  much  the  same. 

It  is  not  the  intention  of  these  words  to  deny 
the  desperate  importance  of  this  conflict  now  that 
it  has  been  joined — Humanism  and  Democracy 

277 


THE  WAR 

have  been  forced  into  a  sudden  and  spasmodic 
death-grapple  with  their  arch-enemies;  and  the 
end  of  that  struggle  must  be  brought  into  con- 
formity with  the  slow,  sure,  general  progress  of 
mankind.  But  if,  by  better  fortune,  this  fear- 
ful conflict  had  not  been  forced  upon  civilisation 
the  same  victory  would  have  made  good  in  course 
of  time,  by  other  processes.  That  is  the  irony. 
For,  of  a  surety,  wars  or  no  wars — the  future  is 
to  humanism. 

But  art  has  no  cause  to  droop  its  head,  nor 
artists  to  be  discouraged.  They  are  the  servants 
of  the  future  every  bit  as  much  as,  and  more 
than,  they  have  been  the  servants  of  the  past; 
they  are  even  the  faithful  servants  of  the  pres- 
ent, for  they  must  keep  their  powers  in  training 
and  their  vision  keen  against  the  time  when  they 
are  once  more  accounted  of.  A  true  picture  is  a 
joy  that  will  move  hearts  some  day,  though  it 
may  not  sell  now,  not  even  for  some  years  after 
the  war;  beauty  is  none  the  less  'the  expression  of 
what  there  is  best  in  man/  because  the  earth  is 
being  soaked  with  blood. 

Monsieur  Sologub,  the  Russian  poet,  speaking 
recently  on  the  future  of  art,  seems  to  have  indi- 
cated his  view  that  after  the  war  art  will  move 
away  from  the  paths  of  naturalism;  and  he  de- 
fines the  naturalists  as  'people  who  describe  life 

278 


ART  AND  THE  WAR 

from  the  standpoint  of  material  satisfaction/ 
With  that  definition  I  don't  agree  at  all;  but  it 
is  never  good  to  argue  about  words.  Confusion 
in  regard  to  the  meaning  of  terms  describing  art 
activity  is  so  profound  that  it  is  well  to  sweep 
them  out  of  our  minds,  and,  in  considering  what 
forms  art  ought  to  take,  go  deep  down  to  the 
criterion  of  communication  between  heart  and 
heart.  The  only  essential  is — that  vision,  fancy, 
feeling  should  be  given  the  concrete  clothing  that 
shall  best  make  them  perceptible  by  the  hearts 
of  others;  the  simpler,  the  more  direct  and  clear 
and  elemental  the  form  the  better;  and  that  is  all 
you  can  say  about  it.  To  seek  remote,  intricate, 
and  'precious'  clothings  for  the  imagination  is  but 
to  handicap  vision  and  imperil  communication 
and  appeal;  the  artists  who  seek  them  are  not 
usually  of  much  account.  The  greatness  of  Blake 
is  the  greatness  of  his  simpler  work.  Though 
in  this  connection,  it  is  as  much  affectation  to 
pretend  that  men  are  more  childish  than  they  are, 
as  to  pretend  that  they  all  have  the  subtlety  of  a 
Robert  Browning.  If  the  range  of  an  artist's 
vision,  the  essential  truth  of  his  fancy,  and  the 
heat  of  his  feeling  be  great,  then,  obviously,  the 
simpler,  the  more  accessible  the  form  he  takes, 
the  wider  will  be  his  reach,  the  deeper  the  emo- 
tion he  stirs,  the  greater  the  value  of  his  art. 

279 


THE  WAR 

'What  is  wanted/  says  Monsieur  Sologub,  'is 
true  art.'  Quite  so !  What  is  wanted  in  a  work 
of  art  is  an  unforced  natural  and  adequate  cor- 
respondence between  fancy  and  form,  matter  and 
spirit,  so  that  one  shall  not  be  distracted  by  its 
naturalism,  mysticism,  cubism,  whatnotism,  but 
shall  simply  be  moved  in  a  deep  impersonal  way 
by  perception  of  another's  vision.  Two  instances 
come  into  the  mind:  A  picture  of  'Spring'  by 
Jean  Francois  Millet,  in  the  Louvre.  Therein, 
by  simple  selection,  without  any  departure  what- 
ever from  the  normal  representation  of  life,  the 
very  essence  of  spring,  the  brooding  and  the 
white  flash  of  it,  the  suspense  and  stir,  the  sense 
of  gathered  torrents,  all  the  special  emotion, 
which,  every  spring  of  the  year,  is  sooner  or  later 
felt  by  every  heart,  has  been  stored  by  the  paint- 
er's vision  and  feeling,  and  projected  from  his 
eyes  and  heart  to  other  eyes  and  hearts. 

And:  Those  chapters  in  a  novel  of  Monsieur 
Sologub's  compatriot,  Turgenev,  'Fathers  and 
Children,'  which  describe  with  the  simplest  nat- 
uralism the  death  of  Bazarov.  There,  too,  is 
the  heart-beat  of  emotion  as  universal  as  it  well 
can  be,  rendered  so  vividly  that  one  is  not  con- 
scious at  all  of  how  it  is  rendered. 

These  are  two  cases  of  that  complete  welding 
of  form  and  spirit  which  is  all  one  need  or  should 

280 


ART  AND  THE  WAR 

demand  of  art;  the  rest  is  a  mere  question  of  the 
artist's  emotional  quality  and  stature.  Art,  in 
fact,  will  take  all  paths  after  the  war  just  as 
before;  and  now  and  then  the  artist  will  fashion 
that  true  blend  of  form  and  fancy  which  is  the 
achievement  of  beauty. 

For  Monsieur  Rodin,  beauty  is  the  adoration 
of  all  that  man  perceives  with  his  spiritual  senses. 
Yes.  And  the  task  of  artists  is  to  kneel  before 
life  till  they  rive  the  heart  from  it  and  with  that 
heart  twine  their  own;  out  of  such  marriages 
come  precious  offspring,  winged  messengers. 

There  is  a  picture  of  Francesca's  in  the  Louvre, 
too  much  restored — some  say  it  is  not  a  Francesca, 
but  if  not,  then  neither  are  the  Francescas  in  the 
English  National  Gallery,  and  those,  so  far  as  I 
know,  are  not  disputed — a  picture  of  the  Virgin, 
with  hands  pressed  together,  before  her  naked 
Babe,  in  a  landscape  of  hills  and  waters.  Her 
kneeling  figure  has  in  it  I  cannot  tell  what  of  de- 
votion and  beauty,  which  makes  the  heart  turn 
over  within  one.  With  his  spiritual  senses  the 
painter  has  perceived,  and  in  adoration  set 
down  what  he  has  seen,  mingling  with  it  the  long- 
ings of  his  own  heart.  And  they  who  look  on  that 
picture  know  for  evermore  what  devotion  and 
beauty  are.  And  if  they  be  artists,  they  go  away 
fortified  again  to  the  taking  up  of  a  long  quest. 

281 


THE  WAR 

This  is  the  utility  of  art.  It  plays  between 
men  like  light,  showing  the  heights  and  depths  of 
nature,  beckoning  on,  or  warning  of  destruction, 
and  ever  through  emotion  revealing  heart  to 
heart.  It  is  the  priestess  of  Humanism,  confirm- 
ing to  us  our  future,  reassuring  our  faltering  faith 
in  our  own  approach  to  the  Unknowable;  till  the 
tides  of  the  Creative  Purpose  turn,  and  our 
world  gets  cold;  and  Man,  having  lived  his  day 
to  the  uttermost,  finds  gradual  sleep. 


282 


TRE  CIME  DI  LAVAREDO 

(From  the  Book  of  Italy,  1916) 

Most  of  us  who  have  lived  a  good,  long  time 
have  found  some  part  of  the  world  to  look  on  as 
the  happy  hunting-ground  of  our  spirits,  the 
place  most  blessed  by  memory.  And  within  that 
sacred  circle  there  will  be  some  spot,  above  all 
others,  enchanted. 

Tre  Cime  di  Lavaredo!  Drei  Zinnen!  You 
three  rock  mountains  above  Misurina  of  the 
Italian  Tyrol — how  many  times  have  we  not 
climbed  up,  to  He  on  your  high  stony  slopes, 
steeping  our  eyes  in  wild  form  and  colour,  where- 
from  even  a  dull  spirit  must  take  wings  and  soar 
a  little!  Width  of  thought  is  surely  born,  in  some 
sort,  of  majestic  sights — cloud  forms  and  a  burn- 
ing sky,  rock  pinnacles,  and  wandering,  deep- 
down  valleys,  the  gray-violet  shadows  on  the 
hills,  the  frozen  serenity  of  far  snows.  All  the 
outspread  miracle  there  lies  fan-shaped  to  the 
south,  southeast,  southwest,  having  that  warmth 
which  so  makes  the  heart  rejoice  the  moment  one 
passes  over  and  looks  southward  from  any  moun- 
tain. What  traveller  does  not  feel  a  strange  love- 
liness steal  up  into  his  soul  from  southern  slopes  ? 

283 


THE  WAR 

Domodossola  below  the  Simplon;  Val  d'Aosta 
beyond  the  Matterhorn;  Bormio  beneath  the 
Stelvio;  and  many  another  holy  place.  It  is  not 
merely  charm  and  mellowness — the  south  can  be 
savage  as  the  north — it  is  some  added  poignancy 
of  form  and  colour,  and  a  look  of  being  blessed. 

Tre  Cime  di  Lavaredo !  Music  comes  drifting 
up  your  slopes,  from  pasture  far  down  enough  to 
give  magic  to  cow-bells. 

But  now,  where  but  three  years  ago  we  watched 
a  little  white  cow  licking  its  herd's  sprained 
hand,  men  are  fighting  to  the  death.  Batteries 
must  be  adorning  that  steep  forcella  running  from 
the  refuge  hut.  A  new  kind  of  thunder  rever- 
berates, in  whose  roar  the  stones  that  were  for 
ever  falling  will  have  lost  their  voices.  And  the 
beasts,  the  gray,  the  dun,  the  white,  mild-eyed — 
their  pasture  below  must  be  a  desert !  Even  the 
goats  surely  have  gone.  Or  do  they  and  their 
young  masters  attend  placidly  on  these  new  mys- 
teries, just  pricking  their  ears  now  and  again  at 
some  too  raucous  clap  and  clatter  of  guns  ? 

Let  those  who  are  killed  up  there  be  buried 
in  their  tracks !  Out  of  their  bodies  on  the  lower 
slopes  a  few  more  flowers  will  spring — gentian, 
mountain-dandelion,  alpen-rose;  and  higher, 
nearer  those  peaks,  they  will  be  grateful  food  for 
root  of  edelweiss.    And  may  their  spirits — if  men 

284 


TRE  CIME  DI  LAVAREDO 

have  such  after  death — stay  up  on  those  wild 
heights!  Nowhere  else  could  they  have  such 
free  flitting  space !  Friend-spirit,  foe-spirit,  they 
will  fight  no  more,  but  on  the  winter  nights  in 
comradeship  haunt  the  frozen  hills,  where  no  shred 
of  man  or  beast  or  bird  or  plant  is  left,  till  spring 
comes  again. 

To  fight  up  here,  where  Nature  has  designed 
one  vast  demonstration  of  her  own  fierce  un- 
tameness  of  all  the  stubborn  face  she  opposes  to 
the  crafts  of  man !  What  irony !  Up  in  this  wild, 
stony  citadel,  among  these  rock  minarets  and  red- 
and -gold-stained  bastions,  above  remote  ravines — ■ 
up  here,  where  in  winter  all  is  ice,  and  even  in 
summer  no  green  thing  grows;  on  these  invincible 
outposts  of  an  earth  not  yet  subdued  by  incalcu- 
lable human  toil  throughout  a  million  years; 
among  these  sublime,  unconquered  monuments, 
reminding  us  of  labour  and  peril  hrfinite  in  our 
long  death-grip  with  Nature — up  here  man  has 
fellow  man  by  the  throat.  Yea!  Irony  com- 
plete !  Nor  the  less  perfect  in  that  each  soldier 
on  these  heights — who  in  duty  clubs  his  fellow 
Christian's  brains  out,  or  sends  forth  the  shell 
that  shall  mingle  his  body  with  the  rock  rubble 
and  the  edelweiss,  and  sets  up  a  little  cross,  per- 
haps, to  the  departed  soul — is  a  true  hero,  holding 
his  life  in  his  hand,  throwing  it  down  grandly  for 

285 


THE  WAR 

his  country's  honour.  Verily  we  are  strange 
animals — we  men — little  walking  magazines  of 
too  great  vitality!  Out  of  our  sheer  rampancy 
comes  war;  as  though  superfluity  of  vital  fluid 
were  for  ever  accumulating,  to  free  ourselves  of 
which  we  have  found  as  yet  no  better  way  than 
this.  Shall  we  never  learn  to  spend  the  surplus 
of  our  vital  force  in  efforts  of  salvation,  rather 
than  destruction?  If  the  mountains  cannot 
teach  us,  and  the  wide  night  skies  above  them, 
sparkling  with  other  worlds,  then  nothing  will. 
For  on  mountains  and  beneath  such  skies  man 
feels  at  his  greatest,  flies  far  in  fancy,  dreams 
of  nobility;  yet  does  he  perceive  what  a  puny 
midget  of  a  creature  walks  on  his  two  feet,  glad 
of  any  little  help  he  can  get  or  give,  glad  of  good- 
will from  any  living  thing.  In  loneliness  up  here 
he  would  soon  be  frozen  and  starved,  or  slip  to 
death.  His  tiny  strength,  his  feeble  cunning, 
would  avail  him  but  short  span.  Unroped  to 
other  men,  he  is  but  a  sigh  in  the  night,  a  cross 
of  bleaching  lime  in  to-morrow's  sunlight.  .  .  . 

Tre  Cime  di  Lavaredo!  Golden  sounds  of  a 
golden  speech !  When,  if  ever,  we  see  your  be- 
loved rocks  again,  that  may  be  your  only  name; 
no  longer,  perhaps,  will  the  words  Drei  Zinnen 
compete  for  you.  .  .  .  But  will  you  know  the  dif- 
ference?   As  of  old,  gigantic — silent,  or,  clamor- 

286 


TRE  CIME  DI  LAVAREDO 

ously,  in  the  loosening  rains  and  heat,  casting 
down  your  stones — you  will  lift  up  your  black 
defiance  in  the  clear  mountain  nights,  your 
grandeur  to  the  sun  by  day. 

Once  we  saw  you  with  the  young  moon  flying 
toward,  like  a  white  swallow,  like  an  arrow  aimed 
at  your  hearts,  as  it  might  be  in  duel  between 
bright  swiftness  and  dark  strength.  The  moon 
was  vanquished — for  she  flew  into  you  that  stood 
unmoved. 

Tre  Cime  di  Lavaredo !  You  will  outlast  the 
race  of  men  upon  this  earth.  When  we,  quarrel- 
some midget  heroes  that  we  be,  are  all  frozen 
from  this  planet,  you  will  be  there,  whitened  for 
ever  from  head  to  foot.  You  will  have  no  name, 
then — neither  of  north  nor  south ! 


287 


SECOND    THOUGHTS    ON   THIS   WAR 

(From  Scribner's  Magazine,  1915) 
1§ 

I  went  out  into  the  wind — the  first  southwest 
wind  after  many  days  of  easterly  drought.  All 
the  morning  it  had  rained,  but  now  the  gray  sky 
was  torn;  the  sun  shone,  and  long  white  clouds 
were  driven  over  pools  of  blue  or  piled  up  into 
heavenly  mountains.  The  land  of  moor  and  val- 
ley, the  hills  and  fields  and  woods  gleamed  in  the 
sunlight,  or  were  shadowed  dark  by  the  drifting 
clouds.  Moss  on  the  top  of  the  old  gray  walls 
was  wet,  but  warm  to  the  touch;  the  birds — 
daws,  pigeons,  hawks — flung  themselves  at  the 
wind.  And  the  scent !  Every  frond  of  the  bracken, 
the  sprigs  of  the  gorse  and  the  heather,  all  the 
soughing  boughs  of  young  pine-tree  and  oak,  and 
the  grass,  gray-powdered  with  rain,  were  exhaling 
their  fragrance,  so  that  each  breath  drawn  was  a 
draught  of  wild  perfume. 

And  in  one's  heart  rose  an  ecstasy  of  love  for 
this  wind-sweetened  earth,  for  the  sun  and  the 
clouds,  the  rain  and  the  wind,  the  trees  and  the 
flowering  plants,  for  the  streams  and  the  rocks — 
for  this  earth  which  breeds  us  all,  and  into  which 

288 


SECOND  THOUGHTS  ON  THIS  WAR 

we  reabsorb,  a  passion  as  untutored,  wild,  and 
natural  as  the  love  of  life  in  the  merest  dumb 
thing  that  knows  nothing  of  ideals,  of  country, 
realms,  and  policies,  nothing  of  war. 

Germany  calls  the  war  "this  English  war"; 
England  as  fervently  believes  it  a  Prussian  war, 
having  deep  root  in  Prussian  will  and  histoiy. 
One  thing  is  certain:  At  the  last  moment  the 
world,  desperately  balancing,  was  thrust  over  the 
edge  of  the  abyss,  by  a  sudden  swoop  of  the  Prus- 
sian war  party. 

Pourtales  (German  ambassador  to  Russia)  called 
Sazonoff's  attention  in  the  most  serious  manner  to  the 
fact  that  nowadays  measures  of  mobilisation  would  be  a 
highly  dangerous  form  of  diplomatic  pressure;  for  in  that 
event  the  purely  military  consideration  of  the  question 
by  the  general  staffs  would  find  expression  and  that,  if 
that  button  were  once  touched  in  Germany,  the  situation 
would  get  out  of  control.  (Count  Szapary,  Austrian 
ambassador  to  Russia.    Austrian  Book  No.  28.)  * 

In  a  Europe  teeming  with  mutual  fears,  a  few 
men,  perhaps  not  a  score  in  all,  have  had  the 

*  Note. — Since  this  was  written  Maximilian  Harden  in  his 
paper,  Zukunft,  has  used  these  words:  "Germany  is  calumniated 
when  it  is  said  that  she  wanted  war,  not  to  defend  herself,  but 
in  order  to  conquer.  But  it  is  equally  false  to  suppose  that  Eng- 
land, France,  or  Russia,  who  were  either  not  armed  at  all  or  only 
half  ready  .  .  .  deliberately  planned  an  attack.  The  outbreak 
of  the  war  could  not  be  arrested,  because  at  the  decisive  moment 
the  Will  of  the  Strategists  was  stronger  than  the  Will  of  the  States- 


men." 


289 


THE  WAR 

power  to  strip  from  millions  their  meed  of  life 
on  this  wind-sweetened  earth!  For  myths  con- 
ceived in  a  few  ambitious  brains,  and  the  'strike- 
first'  theory  of  a  knot  of  strategists,  the  whole 
world  must  pay  with  grief  and  agony!  What 
can  we  do,  when  this  war  is  over,  to  insure  that 
we  shall  not  again  be  stampeded  by  professional 
soldiers,  and  those — in  whatever  country — who 
dream  paper  dreams  of  territory,  trade,  and  glory, 
caring  nothing  for  the  lives  of  the  simple,  know- 
ing nothing  of  the  beauty  of  the  earth  which  is 
their  heritage? 

2§ 

"No  corn  planted,  more  men  wanted !" — words 
of  the  old  Dalmatian  song ! 

It  is  no  use  crying  over  spilt  milk,  and  no 
good  throwing  down  the  instruments  in  the  mid- 
dle of  an  operation.  But  there  is  every  use  in 
keeping  before  one's  self  perpetually  the  thought 
that  this  war  is  an  operation  to  excise  the  tram- 
pling instinct;  for  there  are  many  among  us  will- 
ing to  speak  of  an  operation  while  it  serves  their 
purpose,  who  unconsciously  believe  in  that  which 
they  profess  to  be  cutting  out.  Human  nature 
is  much  the  same  all  the  world  over.  The  Prus- 
sian junker  is  but  a  specially  favoured  variety  of 

290 


SECOND  THOUGHTS  ON  THIS  WAR 

a  well-marked  type  that  grows  in  every  land. 
And  the  business  of  other  men  is  to  keep  circum- 
stances from  being  favourable  to  its  development 
and  ascendancy. 

When  we  talk  of  safeguarding  democracy, 
liberty,  and  the  rights  of  small  nations,  we  really 
only  mean  the  muzzling  of  the  junkerism  in 
human  nature;  the  restraint  of  this  trampling 
instinct.  Who  would  give  a  rush  for  the  immu- 
nity of  any  nation  from  the  resurgence  within  it- 
self of  that  instinct,  unless  it  watches  with  lynx 
eyes?  I  cannot  but  think  that,  when  peace  comes 
and  Prussian  junkerism  is  held  harmless  for  a 
span,  junkerism  in  general  will  have  a  better 
chance  of  pushing  up  its  hydra  heads  than  it 
had  before  this  war.  Times  will  be  very  hard — 
the  "have  nots"  and  "they  who  have"  will  be 
very  nakedly  set  over  against  each  other.  Cir- 
cumstances will  be  favourable  to  civil  strife;  and 
civil  strife,  whichever  side  wins,  fosters  despotic 
leaderships,  and  the  trampling  instinct.  Those 
not  merely  hoping  and  meaning  to  try  for  a  better 
world  after  the  war,  but  expecting  one  almost 
as  a  matter  of  course,  forget  that  the  devotion 
and  unity  which  men  display  under  the  shadow 
of  a  great  fear  and  the  stimulus  of  that  most 
powerful  and  universal  emotion,  patriotism,  will 
slip   away   from   them   when   the  fear   and   the 

291 


THE  WAR 

emotion  are  removed.  If  before  the  war  men 
were  incapable  of  rising  to  great  and  united  ef- 
fort for  their  own  betterment  out  of  sheer  desire 
for  perfection,  are  they  even  as  likely  to  be  able 
when,  after  the  war,  economic  stress  puts  a  greater 
strain  on  each  individual's  good-will  ? 

The  words  of  a  certain  prophet:  "Literature, 
Art,  Industry,  Commerce,  Politics,  Statesman- 
ship will,  when  this  fighting  day  is  over,  come 
into  a  new  and  better  era,"  are  soothing  syrup. 
Let  us  by  all  means  hope  for  and  intend  the  best, 
but  let  us  set  ourselves  to  face  the  worst. 


3§ 

Because  pens  lie  unused,  or  are  but  feebly 
wielded  over  the  war,  they  would  have  us  be- 
lieve that  modern  literature  has  been  found  want- 
ing. "Look,"  they  say,  "how  nobly  the  Greek 
and  the  Elizabethan  pens  rhymed  the  epic  strug- 
gles of  their  ages.  What  a  degenerate,  nerveless 
creature  is  this  modern  pen !  See  how  it  fails 
when  put  to  the  touchstone  of  great  events  and 
the  thrilling  realities  of  war!"  I  think  this  is 
nonsense.  The  greatest  pens  of  the  past  were 
strangers  to  the  glamour  of  war.  Euripides  made 
it  the  subject  of  a  dirge;   Shakespeare  of  casual 

292 


SECOND  THOUGHTS  ON  THIS  WAR 

treatment;  Cervantes  of  his  irony.  They  were 
in  advance  of  the  feeling  of  their  day  about  war; 
but  now  their  feeling  has  become  that  of  mankind 
at  large;  and  the  modern  pen;  good,  bad,  or 
indifferent,  follows — longo  intervallo — their  pre- 
vision of  war's  downfalling  glory.  In  the  words 
of  a  certain  officer,  war  is  now  "damn  dull, 
damn  dirty,  and  damn  dangerous."  The  people 
of  Britain,  and  no  doubt  of  the  other  countries 
— however  bravely  they  may  fight — are  fighting 
not  because  they  love  it,  not  because  it  is  natural 
to  them,  but  because — alas! — they  must.  This 
makes  them  the  more  heroic  since  the  romance 
of  war  for  them  is  past,  belonging  to  cruder 
stages  of  the  world's  journey. 

In  our  consciousness  to-day  there  is  a  violent 
divorce  between  our  admiration  for  the  fine 
deeds,  the  sacrifices,  and  heroisms  of  this  war, 
and  our  feeling  about  war  itself.  A  shadowy  sense 
of  awful  waste  hangs  over  it  all  in  the  mind  of 
the  simplest  soldier  as  in  that  of  the  subtlest 
penman.  It  may  be  real  that  we  fight  for  our 
conceptions  of  liberty  and  justice;  but  we  feel 
all  the  time  that  we  ought  not  to  have  had  to 
fight,  that  these  things  should  be  respected  of 
the  nations;  that  we  have  grown  out  of  such 
savagery;  that  the  whole  business  is  a  kind  of 
monstrous  madness  suddenly  let  loose  on  the 

293 


THE  WAR 

world.  Such  feelings  were  never  in  the  souls  of 
ordinary  men,  whether  soldiers  or  civilians,  in 
the  days  of  Elizabeth  or  Themistocles.  They 
fought,  then,  as  a  matter  of  course.  In  those  so- 
called  heroic  ages  "the  thrilling  realities  of  war" 
were  truly  the  realities  of  life  and  feeling.  To- 
day they  are  but  as  a  long  nightmare.  We  have 
discovered  that  man  is  a  creature  slowly,  by  means 
of  thought  and  life  and  art,  evolving  from  the 
animal  he  was  into  the  human  being  he  will  be 
some  day,  and  in  that  desperately  slow  progres- 
sion sloughing  off  the  craving  for  physical  combat 
and  the  destruction  of  his  fellow  man.  This  pro- 
cess does  not  apparently  mean  the  loss  of  stoi- 
cism and  courage,  but  rather  the  increase  thereof, 
as  millions  in  this  war,  after  the  most  peaceful 
century  in  the  world's  history,  have  proved. 
But  we  are  a  few  paces  further  on  toward  the 
fully  evolved  human  being  than  were  the  com- 
patriots of  Themistocles  or  Elizabeth. 

The  true  realities  of  to-day  He  in  peace.  The 
great  epic  of  our  time  is  the  expression  of  man's 
slow  emergence  from  the  blood-loving  animal  he 
was.  To  that  great  epic  the  modern  pen  has 
long  been  consecrate,  and  is  not  likely  to  betray 
its  trust. 


294 


SECOND  THOUGHTS  ON  THIS  WAR 

4§ 

One  day  we  read  in  our  journals  how  an  enemy 
Socialist  or  Pacifist  has  raised  his  voice  against 
the  mob  passions  and  war  spite  of  his  country, 
and  we  think:  "What  an  enlightened  man!" 
and  the  next  day,  in  the  same  journals,  we  read 
that  So-and-So  has  done  the  same  thing  in  our 
own  country,  and  we  think:  "My  God!  He 
ought  to  be  hung!"  To-day  we  listen  with  en- 
thusiasm to  orations  of  our  statesmen  about  the 
last  drop  of  our  blood,  and  the  last  pennies  in 
our  purses,  and  we  think:  "That  is  patriotism !" 
To-morrow  we  read  utterance  by  enemy  notables 
about  arming  the  cats  and  dogs,  and  exclaim: 
"What  truculent  insanity!"  We  learn  on  Mon- 
day that  some  disguised  fellow  countryman  has 
risked  his  life  to  secure  information  from  the 
heart  of  the  enemy's  country,  and  we  think: 
"That  was  real  courage!"  And  on  Tuesday 
our  bile  rises  at  discovering  that  an  enemy  has 
been  arrested  in  our  midst  for  espionage,  and  we 
think:  "The  dirty  spy!"  Our  blood  boils  on 
Wednesday  at  hearing  of  the  scurvy  treatment 
of  one  of  ourselves  resident  in  the  enemy's  coun- 
try. And  on  Thursday  we  read  of  the  wrecking 
by  our  mob  of  aliens'  shops,  and  think:  "Well, 
what  could  they  expect,  belonging  to  that  na- 

295 


THE  WAR 

tion!"  When  one  of  our  regiments  has  defended 
itself  with  exceptional  bravery,  and  inflicted 
great  loss  on  the  enemy,  we  justly  call  it — hero- 
ism. When  some  enemy  regiment  has  done  the 
same,  we  use  the  word — ferocity.  The  comic 
papers  of  the  enemy  guy  us,  and  we  think:  "How 
childish!"  Ours  guy  the  enemy,  and  we  cry: 
"Ah!  that's  good!"  Our  enemies  use  a  hymn 
of  hate,  and  we  despise  them  for  it.  We  do  our 
hate  in  silence,  and  feel  ourselves  the  better  for 
the  practice. 

Shall  we  not  rather  fight  our  fight,  and  win  it, 
without  these  little  ironies? 


5§ 

The  first  thing  he  does  when  he  comes  down 
each  morning  is  to  read  his  paper,  and  the  mo- 
ment he  has  finished  breakfast  he  sticks  the  neces- 
sary flags  into  his  big  map.  He  began  to  do  that 
very  soon  after  the  war  broke  out,  and  has  never 
missed  a  day.  It  would  seem  to  him  almost  as  if 
peace  had  been  declared,  and  the  universe  were 
suddenly  unbottomed,  if  any  morning  he  omitted 
to  alter  slightly  three  flags  at  least.  What  will 
he  do  when  the  end  at  last  is  reached,  and  he 
can  no  longer  tear  the  paper  open  with  a  kind 

296 


SECOND  THOUGHTS  ON  THIS  WAR 

of  trembling  avidity;  no  longer  debate  within 
himself  the  questions  of  strategy  and  the  absorb- 
ing chances  of  the  field;  when  he  has,  in  fact,  to 
sweep  his  flags  into  a  drawer  and  forget  they 
ever  were  ?  It  would  haunt  him,  if  he  thought  of 
it.  But  sufficient  unto  his  day  is  the  good 
thereof.  Yes!  It  has  almost  come  to  that 
with  him;  though  he  will  still  talk  to  you  of  "this 
dreadful  war,"  and  never  allude  to  the  days  as 
"great"  or  to  the  times  as  "stirring,"  as  some 
folk  do.  No,  he  sincerely  believes  that  he  is  dis- 
tressed beyond  measure  by  the  continuance  of 
"the  abominable  business";  and  would  not  con- 
fess for  worlds  that  he  would  miss  it,  that  it  has 
become  for  him  a  daily  "cocktail"  to  his  ap- 
petite for  life.  It  is  not  he,  after  all,  who  is  being 
skinned;  to  the  skinning  of  other  eels  the  in- 
dividual eel  is  soon  accustomed.  By  proxy  to  be 
"making  history,"  to  be  witnessing  the  "great- 
est drama"  known  to  man  since  the  beginning 
of  the  world — after  all  it  is  something !  He  will 
never  have  such  a  chance  again.  He  still  re- 
members with  a  shudder  how  he  felt  the  first  weeks 
after  war  was  declared;  and  the  mere  fact  that 
he  shudders  shows  that  his  present  feelings  are 
by  no  means  what  they  were.  After  all,  one  can- 
not remain  for  ever  prepossessed  with  suffering 
that  is  not  one's  own,  or  with  fears  of  invasion 

297 


THE  WAR 

indefinitely  postponed.  True,  he  has  lost  a 
nephew,  a  second  cousin,  the  sons  of  several 
friends.  He  has  been  duly  sorry,  duly  sym- 
pathetic, but  then,  he  was  not  dangerously  fond 
of  any  of  them.  His  own  son  is  playing  his  part, 
and  he  is  proud  of  it.  If  the  boy  should  be  killed 
he  will  feel  poignant  grief,  but  even  then  there 
is  revenge  to  be  considered.  His  pocket  is  suffer- 
ing, but  it  is  for  the  country — and  that  almost 
makes  it  a  pleasure.  And  he  goes  on  sticking  in 
his  flags  in  spots  where  the  earth  is  a  mush  of 
mangled  flesh,  and  the  air  shrill  with  the  whir  of 
shells,  the  moans  of  dying  men,  and  the  screams 
of  horses. 

Is  this  pure  fantasy;  or  does  it  hold  a  grain  of 
truth? 


6§ 

The  war  brings  up  with  ever  greater  insistence 
the  two  antagonistic  feelings  of  which  one  was 
always  conscious:  That  men  are  radically  alike. 
And  that  there  are  two  kinds  of  men,  subtly  but 
hopelessly  divided  from  each  other. 

Men  are  radically  alike  in  the  way  they  meet 
danger  and  death,  in  their  sentiment  and  in  their 
laughter,  in  their  endurance,  their  passions, 
their  self-sacrifice,  their  selfishness,  their  super- 

298 


SECOND  THOUGHTS  ON  THIS  WAR 

stitions,  and  their  gratitude.  They  are  radically 
divided  by  possession  or  not,  of  that  extra  sensi- 
tiveness to  proportion,  form,  colour,  sound,  which 
we  call  the  sense  of  beauty.  Would  there  still 
be  war  in  a  world  the  most  of  whose  dwellers  had 
the  sense  of  beauty?  I  think  not.  And  they 
who  have  it,  so  few  by  comparison,  are  tragic- 
ally compelled  to  live  and  bear  their  part  in 
this  hell,  created  by  a  world  of  which  they  are 
not. 

These  two  kinds  of  men  shade  subtly  the  one 
into  the  other;  but  the  division  is  real,  for  all 
that — the  bristles  on  the  backs  of  each  true 
specimen  on  either  side  of  the  line  rise  at  sight  of 
the  other  sort. 

And  the  war,  with  its  toil  and  hardships,  its 
common  humanity,  deaths  and  dangers,  and 
sacrifices  shared,  will  not  bring  them  one  jot 
nearer  one  to  the  other.  Is  there  evidence  for 
thinking  that  a  sense  of  beauty  is  more  common 
than  it  was?  I  am  not  sure.  But  there  is  cer- 
tainly no  chance  that  the  sense  of  beauty  can  in- 
crease within  measurable  time,  so  as  to  give  its 
possessors  a  majority.  No  chance  that  wars  will 
cease  from  that  reason.  The  little  world  of  beauty 
lovers  will  for  many  ages  yet,  perhaps  always,  be 
pitifully  in  tow,  half -drowned  by  the  following 
surge  of  the  big,  insensitive  world  when  it  loses 

299 


THE  WAR 

for  a  time  what  little  feeling  for  harmony  it  has, 
and  goes  full  speed  ahead. 


Some  argue  earnestly  that  what  really  restrains 
and  regulates  the  conduct  of  individuals  is  not 
force,  but  the  general  sense  of  decency,  the  public 
opinion  of  the  community;  and  that  the  same  rule 
applies  to  nations.  In  other  words,  that  there  is 
no  reason  why  inter-State  morality  should  be  dif- 
ferent from  that  prevailing  among  the  individ- 
uals within  a  state. 

This  argument  neglects  to  perceive,  first: 
That  the  public  opinion  of  a  community  is,  in 
reality,  latent  force;  that  in  a  real  community 
'right  is  might'  up  to  a  certain  point,  that  is. 
And  secondly:  That  there  is  as  yet  no  commu- 
nity within  which  the  nations  dwell. 

An  individual  cannot  pursue  rank  egotism  to 
the  complete  overriding  of  his  neighbours  with- 
out knowing  that  those  neighbours  can  and  will 
give  concrete  expression  to  their  resentment,  and 
suppress  him.  This  latent  force  is  at  the  back 
of  all  state  law  and  of  all  public  opinion,  which 
is  but  state  law  unwritten.  The  essence  of  its 
efficacy  is  the  fact  that  individuals  do  live  in 
community,  each  one  perceiving  with  the  non- 
300 


SECOND  THOUGHTS  ON  THIS  WAR 

rampant  part  of  him  that  the  rest  are  right  in 
squashing  his  rampancy,  since  life  in  community 
would  soon  be  impossible  if  they  did  not.  He 
consents,  subconsciously,  to  being  squashed  when 
he  is  rampant,  because  he  recognises  himself  to 
be  part  of  a  whole. 

Until  nations  have  come  to  be  parts  of  com- 
munities, or  group  states,  there  will  be  no  really 
effective  analogy  between  individual  morality 
and  state  morality.  There  is  or  was,  of  course,  a 
growing  international  decency,  a  reaching  out 
toward  co-operation,  a  recognition  that  certain 
things  are  "not  done";  but  it  is  liable  to  be 
violated,  as  we  have  seen,  at  any  moment  by  any 
state  which  is,  or  thinks  itself,  strong  enough  to 
override  laws  which  have  no  adequate  latent 
force  behind  them.  To  create  this  latent  control- 
ling force  we  have  paramount  need  of  a  system 
of  group  states,  leading  on  by  slow  degrees 
through  the  linking  of  one  group  with  another, 
to  an  United  States  of  the  World.  The  neces- 
sary line  of  progression  is  sufficiently  disclosed 
by  the  violation  of  Belgian  neutrality  and  other 
matters  in  this  war.  Public  opinion  not  backed 
by  latent  force  has  been  proved  useless.  There 
is  no  such  thing,  I  fear,  as  public  opinion  worth 
the  name  except  within  a  definite  community. 
The  task  of  statesmen  when  peace  comes  is  the 

301 


THE  WAR 

formation  of  an  United  States  of  Europe — linked 
if  possible  with  the  countries  of  America — the 
creation  of  a  real  public  opinion  backed  by  a  real, 
if  latent;  force. 


8§ 

Nietzsche  was  an  individualist,  a  hater  of  the 
state  and  of  the  Prussians,  a  sick  man,  a  great 
artist  in  words  to  be  read  with  delight  and — 
your  tongue  in  your  cheek.  By  quaint  irony  his 
central  idea,  "the  ego-rampant,"  was  tempera- 
mentally suited  to  those  Prussians  whom  he  hated. 
The  Neo-German  conception  of  the  state  (if  one 
may  fairly  judge  it  out  of  the  mouths  of  certain 
Germans)  as  a  law  unto  itself,  demanding  all 
from  the  individuals  who  compose  it,  and  taking 
all  it  can  get  from  the  world  at  large,  may  be  in- 
verted Nietzscheism,  but  it  is  the  creature  of 
Prussian  history,  and  of  very  different  men.  It 
is  based  on  what  we  others,  and  I  imagine  many 
Germans,  think  is  a  transient  and  false  notion  of 
what  states  should  be.  We  say  they  should  not 
roam  the  earth  considering  only  their  own 
strength.  True  that,  in  the  absence  as  yet  of 
the  system  of  group  states,  states  still  can  seize 
here  or  seize  there,  if  they  be  strong  enough,  but 
we  emphatically  deny  that  they  should  do  so  on 

302 


SECOND  THOUGHTS  ON  THIS  WAR 

principle,  as  the  new  German  philosophy  seems 
to  teach,  and  set  the  robber's  ideal,  the  robber's, 
fashion  of  morality,  for  the  individuals  who  com- 
pose those  states.  The  philosophy  not  only  of 
the  rest  of  Europe,  but  of  Germany,  before  all, 
in  the  days  of  Kant  and  Hegel,  presumed  that 
the  hard-won  morality  of  individuals  among 
themselves  would  ultimately  become  the  morality 
of  states. 

"The  fact  that  the  sense  of  community  among 
the  peoples  of  the  earth  has  gone  so  far  that  the 
violation  of  right  in  one  place  is  felt  everywhere, 
has  made  the  idea  of  a  citizenship  of  the  world 
no  fantastic  dream,  but  a  necessary  extension  of 
the  unwritten  code  of  states  and  peoples." 
(Kant.) 

"The  binding  cord  is  not  force,  but  the  deep- 
seated  feeling  of  order  that  is  possessed  by  us 
all."    (Hegel.) 

The  new  German  philosophy  has  anointed  the 
present  immorality  of  states  and  thereby  fixed  it 
as  the  morality  for  individuals.  I  think  these 
philosophers  in  their  characteristic  German  ex- 
uberance, with  its  habit  of  overstatement,  have 
been  hard  on  Germany.  For  the  German  people 
at  large  have  presumably  been  acquiring  through- 
out the  ages  the  same  instincts  toward  altruism 
as  the  peoples  of  other  countries.    The  new  Ger- 

303 


THE  WAR 

man  philosophy  has  succeeded  to  a  dismal  ex- 
tent in  its  inoculation  of  the  German  people,  but 
it  cannot  in  the  long  run  impose  its  logical  ideal 
of  reversion  to  the  wild  man  in  the  forest  on  the 
Germans,  any  more  than  the  old  German  phi- 
losophy made  the  Germans  replicas  of  Christ. 

Man  never  attains  to  his  philosophical  ideal; 
but  it  is  just  as  well  that  he  should  see  clearly 
its  apotheosis  before  he  tries  too  hard  to  reach  it. 

9§ 

Our  enemy  now  proclaims  that  his  objective 
is  the  crushing  of  Britain's  world  power  in  the 
interests  of  mankind. 

Are  we  justified  in  retaining  if  we  can  what, 
in  a  by  no  means  unstained  past,  we  have  ac- 
quired, or  should  we  hand  over  our  position, 
well  and  ill  gotten,  to  this  new  claimant  with  his 
new  culture,  for  the  benefit  of  the  world? 

Man  has  a  somewhat  incurable  belief  that  he 
can  manage  his  own  affairs,  and  we  Britons  hold 
the  faith  that  our  character,  ideals,  and  experi- 
ence fit  us  to  control  our  own  lives  and  property 
for  the  general  good  of  mankind,  side  by  side 
with  other  nations  of  like  mind.  The  fortunate 
possessors  of  the  greater  empire  and  the  greater 
trade  are  not  perhaps  the  most  convincing  advo- 

304 


SECOND  THOUGHTS  ON  THIS  WAR 

cates  of  the  principle:  "Live  and  let  live."  For 
all  that,  we  find  it  impossible  to  admit  the  right 
of  any  nation  to  an  aggressive  policy  toward  us. 
Germany,  after  being  petrified  with  surprise  at 
our  intervention,  now  accuses  us  of  having 
planned  the  war,  and  deliberately  attacked  her. 
It  is  divinely  easy  to  claim  things  both  ways 
when  you  are  at  war.  We  all  see  just  now  rather 
as  in  a  glass,  darkly.  And  yet,  with  an  immense 
empire,  an  immense  trade,  and  nothing  that  we 
wanted  anywhere,  with  a  crop  of  serious  social 
and  political  troubles  on  hand,  "a  contemptible 
little  army,"  a  tradition  of  abstention  from  Eu- 
ropean quarrels,  a  free  trade  policy,  a  demo- 
cratic system  of  government,  a  foreign  minister 
remarkable  up  to  then  for  his  services  to  peace, 
and  a  "degenerate,  wealth-rotted,  huckstering" 
population,  it  still  seems  to  us,  (always  except- 
ing our  handful  of  pre-war  Jingoes)  as  improbable 
as  it  once  seemed  to  Germany,  that  we  hatched 
and  set  on  foot  such  a  wildcat  enterprise. 

10  § 

"A  war  of  exhaustion."  How  often  we  use 
those  words !  They  are  current  in  all  the  belliger- 
ent countries,  and  in  all  they  are  unreally  used, 
as  yet.    But  they  are,  I  fear,  literally  true.    It 

305 


THE  WAR 

is  a  war  which — save  for  some  happy  chance — 
can  hardly  end  till  one  group  or  the  other  have 
no  longer  the  men  to  hold  their  lines.  The  sway 
of  the  fighting  is  of  no  great  moment;  it  does  not 
seem  to  matter  where  precisely  the  killing,  maim- 
ing, and  capturing  go  on,  so  long  as  they  do  go 
on,  with  a  certain  mathematical  regularity.  A 
year  or  so  hence,  when  the  total  disablement  is 
nearer  twenty  than  ten  millions,  the  meaning  of 
the  words  will  be  a  little  clearer,  and  they  will 
probably  only  then  be  used  by  the  side  whose 
united  population  is  still  more  than  twice  that 
of  the  other  side.  Two  years  hence  they  will  be 
seen  to  have  meant  exactly  what  they  said.  All 
the  swinging  from  optimism  to  pessimism  and 
back  again,  the  cock-a-hoop  of  the  press  one  day, 
the  dirge  of  the  press  the  next;  the  alarms  and 
excursions  about  the  failure  of  this  or  that — they 
are  all  storms  in  teacups.  The  wills  of  the  na- 
tions fighting  are  equally  engaged,  and  will  not 
break;  the  energies  will  not  break;  the  food  will 
probably  not  quite  fail;  the  money  will  be  found 
somehow;  but  the  human  flesh  will  give  out,  in 
time — that's  all;  on  which  side  it  will  give  out 
first  may  be  left  to  the  child  who  can  count  up 
to  two.  No  glory  about  this  business — just  ding- 
dong  shambles ! 

If  one  believed,  with  a  certain  Englishman,  that 

306 


SECOND  THOUGHTS  ON  THIS  WAR 

there  was  no  real  struggle  of  ideals  involved, 
these  words,  "a  war  of  exhaustion,"  meaning 
what  they  really  do,  would  be  too  intolerable  even 
to  think  of.  He  who  denies  this  to  be  a  struggle 
of  ideals  may  have  a  brilliant  intellect,  but  he 
can  surely  have  none  of  that  instinctive  percep- 
tion of  the  essence  and  atmosphere  of  things 
which  is  a  so  much  surer  guide  than  reason.  He 
has  perceived  doubtless  that  autocratists  and 
force-worshippers  in  England,  in  Russia,  in  Italy 
(there  are  but  few  in  France)  are  fighting  against 
the  Central  Empires  as  furiously  as  if  they  were 
the  most  ardent  lovers  of  liberty;  and  that  the 
democrats  and  humanists  in  Central  Europe  are 
fighting  for  their  countries  as  devotedly  as  their 
force-worshipping  rulers,  and  he  has  thought: 
"This  is  a  mere  blind  game  of  'Kill  your  neigh- 
bour/ with  nothing  real  at  stake  save  the  ag- 
grandisement of  one  group  of  countries  or  the 
other."  But  behind  all  this,  is  the  psychological 
heart  of  the  matter — the  states  of  mind  in  the 
belligerent  countries  before  they  began  to  fight. 
There  are  racial  temperaments  to  which  certain 
ideals  seem  to  be  fatal.  The  Teuton  of  all  men 
requires  the  Christian,  or  shall  we  say  the  human- 
istic, ethic,  to  modify  something  science-ridden, 
overbearing,  and  heady  in  his  soul.  The  Teuton, 
before  the  new  philosophy  of  self-expansion  at 

307 


THE  WAR 

all  costs  laid  hold  on  him,  was  welcome,  from 
his  many  great  qualities,  in  a  world  of  other 
men.  But  his  was  the  last  nature  that  could 
afford  to  succumb  wholesale  to  the  faith  that  his 
race  was  the  only  race  that  mattered.  If  he 
could  see  himself,  he  would  realise  that  the  very 
thoroughness  and  over-exaltation  of  his  nature 
made  it  ruinous  for  him  to  tamper  with  this  par- 
ticular ideal,  for  he  was  bound  sooner  or  later  to 
run  it  to  death,  to  the  danger  and  alarm  of  all 
other  races.  With  the  best  will  in  the  world  no 
one  outside  Germany  could  miss  this  latter-day 
Teutonic  absorption  in  self;  the  Teuton  has  dinned 
it  into  every  ear,  and  forgotten,  in  so  doing,  that 
we  should  not  take  off  discount  for  temperamental 
extravagance  of  diction.  The  German  imperial- 
istic patriot  has  done  an  incalculable,  perhaps  a 
fatal,  harm  to  the  country  he  loves  so  passion- 
ately. But  even  discounting  for  rhodomontade,  no 
observer  who  has  feelers  can  fail  to  be  aware  of 
the  spiritual  change  in  Germany.  I  remember  one 
tiny  instance  out  of  many — a  mere  straw  show- 
ing the  direction  of  the  wind.  The  winter  before 
the  war  there  were  in  a  certain  hotel  in  Egypt 
four  Teutons.  A  quiet,  dignified  old  man,  his 
tiny,  quiet,  dignified  wife,  and  their  two  big  sons. 
The  difference  between  the  two  generations  was 
distressing.     In  the  older,  such  an  air  of  unas- 

308 


SECOND  THOUGHTS  ON  THIS  WAK 

suming  goodness,  in  the  younger  a  demeanour 
so  intolerant  and  domineering;  those  two  sons 
were  respectful  and  good  to  their  father  and 
mother;  but  toward  the  rest  of  the  world — to 
natives,  English,  Americans,  and  other  small  fry 
— they  displayed  an  astounding  contempt. 

The  Berlin  Concordia  has  just  issued  maxims 
of  conduct  to  the  German  people,  in  a  little  book 
called  "Let  Germany  Learn."  I  cull  two  of 
them:  "The  soft  corner  in  your  heart  for  the 
foreigner  will  never  give  you  his  affection,  but 
only  his  contempt!"  and:  "Everything  depends 
on  your  own  strength." 

It  would  be  easy  to  make  out  some  sort  of 
case  against  any  of  the  belligerent  nations.  It 
would  not  be  easy  to  show  that  any  nation  save 
Germany  was  in  that  peculiar  state  of  full-blooded 
self-confidence  which  upholds  the  Will  to  Power, 
and  denies  the  Will  to  Equity. 

11  § 

It  seems  certain  that  the  practice  of  doping 
soldiers  with  ether,  or  other  spirit  before  an 
attack,  has  been  largely  resorted  to  by  certain 
nations  in  this  war.  Nothing  that  is  happening 
so  illuminates  the  nature  of  modern  warfare; 
illustrates  more  utterly  the  absorption  of  human 

309 


THE  WAR 

bodies  and  souls  into  the  machines  that  are 
crashing  into  each  other.  Men  have  become 
mere  lumps  of  coal  to  be  converted  into  driving 
power.  And  in  supreme  moments;  lest  the  be- 
wildered spirit,  brought  up  to  peace,  should  move 
hand  or  foot  in  protest  or  recoil,  that  spirit  is  first 
stolen  away.  The  usage  is  not  prompted  by 
motives  of  mercy,  yet  has  in  it  a  kind  of  awful 
humanity.  Granted  the  premises,  who  dare 
grudge  this  anodyne  to  the  doomed  ? 

Verily  on  every  man  who  in  time  of  peace 
speaks  or  writes  one  word  to  foster  bad  spirit 
between  nations,  a  curse  should  rest;  he  is  part 
and  parcel  of  that  malevolence  which  at  last  sets 
these  great  engines,  fed  by  lumps  of  human  coal, 
to  crash  along,  and  pile  up  against  each  other, 
in  splintered  wreckage.  Only  too  well  he  plays 
the  game  of  those  grim  schemers  to  whose  ac- 
count lie  the  death,  the  dehumanisation,  the  de- 
spair of  millions  of  their  brother  men. 


12  § 

A  wonderful  night  to-night,  so  that  the  spirit 
goes  forth  a  little,  enters  the  harmony  of  things, 
drinks  the  magic  of  the  world.  How  beauty 
moves  the  heart!  And  war  cannot  destroy  it, 
cannot  take  from  us  the  feeling  that — living  or 

310 


SECOND  THOUGHTS  ON  THIS  WAR 

dead — we  belong  to  such  perfection.  It  cannot 
take  the  voice  from  the  streams,  remove  the 
flight  of  small  wings  in  the  darkness,  the  gleam 
of  moonlight,  the  whisper  of  night  about  us,  nor 
that  bright  star.  It  cannot  take  from  within  us 
the  soul  that  vibrates  to  loveliness,  to  the  universal 
rhythm  round  us. 

If  in  this  war  the  figures  of  cruelty  and  death 
have  surpassed  themselves  in  darkness,  the  figure 
of  humanity  has  never  been  so  radiant  and  so 
lovely.  Perhaps  we  do  not  know  enough  what 
man  was  really  like  in  past  ages,  to  compare  him 
with  man  to-day.  But  it  does  seem  as  if  he  had 
grown  in  power  for  evil,  and  even  more  in  power 
for  good.  Or  perhaps  it  is  only  that,  being  more 
sensitive  and  highly  strung,  the  story  of  his  doings 
is  altogether  more  poignant. 

From  the  letters  of  a  young  French  painter, 
who,  after  months  in  the  trenches,  disappeared  in 
an  engagement  on  the  7th  of  April,  1915,  I  quote 
these  sayings: 

"You  know  what  I  call  religion — that  which 
binds  together  in  man  all  his  thoughts  of  the  uni- 
versal and  of  the  eternal,  those  two  forms  of 
God!  .  .  .  Don't  let's  lose  hope;  the  trials  of 
hope  are  many,  but  all  beauty  lives  for  ever.  .  .  . 
The  dead  won't  hurt  the  spring!  .  .  .  Did  you 
see  yesterday's  sun?    How  noble  the  country  is, 

311 


THE  WAR 

and  how  good  Nature !  She  seems  to  say  to  him 
who  listens  that  nothing  will  be  lost.  .  .  .  We 
know  not  whether  all  this  violence  and  disorder 
may  not  be  leading  us  toward  a  crowning  good.  .  .  . 
Out  of  this  torment  we  shall  be  left  with  one 
great  aspiration  toward  pity,  fraternity,  and 
goodness.  .  .  .  Never  has  life  brought  me  such 
abundance  of  noble  feelings;  never,  perhaps,  have 
I  had  such  freshness  of  sensibility  for  their  record- 
ing; such  a  sensation  of  safety  in  my  spirit.  .  .  . 
We  spend  the  days  like  children.  .  .  .  And  the 
good  from  this  war  will  be  the  making  young 
again  the  hearts  of  those  who  have  been  through 
it." 

And  his  last  written  words:  "Beloved  Mother, 
I  send  you  all  my  love.  Whatever  happens,  life 
will  have  been  beautiful." 

Not  to  many  is  given  so  clear  a  soul  as  this,  so 
fine  a  spirit.  Peace  and  loveliness  be  with  him, 
and  with  all  who  die  like  him  before  their  time, 
following  the  light  within  them.  And  with  all 
who  live  on  in  this  world  of  beauty,  where  the 
dead  harm  not  the  spring,  may  there  be — in  his 
words — the  longing  for  pity,  fraternity,  and 
goodness ! 


312 


TOTALLY  DISABLED 

(From  The  Observer,  1916) 

If  I  were  that!  Not  as  one  getting  into  the 
yellow  leaf,  but  with  all  the  spring-running  in 
me.  If  I  lay,  just  turning  my  eyes  here  and 
there !    How  should  I  feel  ? 

How  do  they  feel — those  helpless  soldiers  and 
sailors  already  lying  in  the  old  ballroom  of  the 
"Star  and  Garter"?  The  ghostly  officer  is  ever 
crying  in  that  hospital  ward: 

"Stick  it,  men!  Stick  it!  Only  for  life! 
Stick  it!" 

Only  for  life — how  many  years!  In  the  year 
only  three  hundred  and  sixty-five  awakenings; 
only  all  those  returns  from  merciful  sleep ! 

"Stick  it,  men!    Stick  it!" 

Totally  disabled — incurably  helpless!  No! 
One  can't  realise  what  it  feels  like  to  be  caught 
young  and  strong  in  such  a  net;  to  be  caught — 
not  for  your  own  folly  and  excesses,  not  through 
accident  or  heredity,  but  as  reward  for  giving 
yourself  body  and  soul  to  your  country.  Better 
so,  more  easily  borne;  and  yet  how  much  more 
ironically  tragic ! 

Who  knows  what  the  freedom  of  limbs  means, 
till  he  has  lost  it?    Who  can  measure  the  ecstasy 

313 


THE  WAR 

of  vigour,  till  every  power  of  movement  has  been 
cut  off?  Who  really  grasps  what  it's  like  to  lie 
like  a  log  dependent  for  everything  on  others — 
save  those  who  have  to?  Think  of  the  trout  in 
the  streams,  of  the  birds  of  the  air,  the  winged 
creatures  innumerable,  think  of  each  beast  and 
creeping  thing — can  one  even  imagine  them  with- 
out movement?  Men,  also,  are  meant  to  be  free 
of  their  world,  masters  of  their  limbs  and  senses. 
They  who  He  helpless  are  no  longer  quite  bodies, 
for  the  essence  of  body  is  movement;  already 
they  are  almost  spirits.  It  is  as  if,  in  passing, 
one  looked  at  minds,  nearly  all  in  the  heyday  of 
consciousness  and  will. 

Sometimes  I  vaguely  fancy  that  after  violent 
death  a  man's  spirit  may  go  on  clinging  above  the 
earth  just  so  long  as  his  normal  life  would  have 
run;  that  a  spirit  rived  before  its  time  wanders 
till  such  date  as  consciousness  would  have  worn 
itself  out  in  the  body's  natural  death.  If  that 
random  fancy  were  true,  we  to-day  would  all  be 
passing  among  unseen  crowds  of  these  rived 
spirits,  watching  us,  without  envy  perhaps,  being 
freer  than  ourselves.  But  those  who  lie  hope- 
lessly disabled,  having  just  missed  that  enfran- 
chisement, are  tied  to  what  still  exists,  and  yet 
in  truth  have  died  already.  Of  all  men  they  have 
the  chance  to  prove  the  mettle  of  the  human  soul 

314 


TOTALLY  DISABLED 

— that  mysterious  consciousness  capable  of  such 
heights  and  depths;  no,  not  a  greater  chance  than 
men  tortured  by  long  solitary  confinement,  or 
even  than  those  who  through  excess  or  through 
heredity  He  for  ever  helpless — but  yet  so  great  a 
chance  that  they  are  haloed  for  all  of  us  happier 
ones  who  are  free  of  our  limbs  and  our  lives. 
Some  among  those  prisoned  spirits  must  needs 
shrink  and  droop,  and  become  atrophied  in  the 
long  helplessness  of  a  broken  body.  But  many 
will  grow  finer — according  to  their  natures — some 
pursuing  the  ideal  of  recompense  in  another 
world;  some,  in  the  stoic  belief  that  serenity  and 
fortitude  are  the  fine  flowers  of  life,  unconsciously 
following  the  artist's  creed — that  to  make  a  per- 
fect thing,  even  if  it  be  only  of  his  own  spirit,  is 
in  itself  all  the  reward. 

Whichever  it  be,  slow  decay  or  slow  perfecting, 
we  others  approach  them  with  heads  bowed,  in 
as  great  reverence  as  we  give  to  the  green  graves 
of  our  brave  dead.  And  if  pity — that  pity  which 
to  some,  it  seems,  is  but  ignoble  weakness — be 
not  driven  from  this  earth,  then  with  pity  we 
shall  nerve  our  resolve  that  never  shall  anything 
be  lacking  to  support  or  comfort  those  who  gave 
all  for  us  and  are  so  broken  by  their  sacrifice. 

As  I  write  the  sun  is  hot  for  the  first  time  this 
year,  and  above  the  snow   spring  is  in  the  air- 

315 


THE  WAR 

Under  Richmond  Hill  the  river  will  be  very- 
bright,  winding  among  trees  not  yet  green.  And 
the  helpless  who  are  lying  there  already  will  be 
thinking:  'I  shall  never  walk  under  trees  again — 
nor  by  a  riverside/ 

If  one  dwells  too  much  on  the  miseries  this  world 
contains,  there  must  come  a  moment  when  one 
will  say:  *  Life's  not  worth  living;  I  will  end  it!' 
But  by  some  dispensation,  few  of  us  reach  that 
point — too  sanely  selfish,  or  saved  by  the  thought 
that  we  must  work  to  reduce  the  sum  of  misery. 

For  these  greatest  of  all  sufferers — these  help- 
less and  incurable — can  we  do  too  much — ever 
reach  the  word :  Enough  ? 

To  you,  women  of  Great  and  Greater  Britain, 
it  has  fallen  to  raise  on  Richmond  Hill  this  refuge 
and  home  for  our  soldiers  and  sailors  totally  dis- 
abled. Where  thirty-two  are  now  lying,  there 
will  soon  be  two  hundred  more.  Nearly  all  my 
life  I  have  known  the  spot  on  which  this  home 
will  stand — and,  truly,  no  happier  choice  could 
have  been  made.  If  beauty  consoles — and  it 
can,  a  little — it  is  there  in  all  the  seasons;  a  be- 
nign English  beauty  of  fields  and  trees  and  water 
spread  below,  under  a  wide  sky. 

One  hundred  thousand  pounds  you  need  to 
raise  this  monument  of  mercy  in  tribute  to  the 
brave.    If  it  were  five  hundred  thousand  you 

316 


TOTALLY  DISABLED 

would  give  it;  for  is  not  this  monument  to  be  the 
record  and  token  of  your  gratitude,  your  love, 
and  your  pity?  Each  one  of  you,  I  think,  how- 
ever poor,  must  wish  to  lay  one  brick  or  stone  of 
the  house  that  is  to  prove  your  ministering. 

If  the  misery  through  this  war  could  be  bal- 
anced in  scales,  I  do  not  think  men's  suffering 
would  pull  down  that  of  wives,  and  mothers,  sis- 
ters, daughters;  but  this  special  suffering  of  in- 
curable disablement — this  has  been  spared  you, 
who  yet  by  nature  are  better  at  enduring  than 
men.  It  has  been  spared  you;  and  in  return  you 
have  vowed  this  home  for  the  helpless;  a  more 
sacred  place  than  any  church,  for  within  it  every 
hour  of  day  and  night,  pain  will  be  assuaged,  de- 
spair be  overcome,  actual  living  tenderness  be 
lavished. 

When  you  have  built  this  refuge  for  the  pris- 
oners of  fate,  when  you  have  led  them  there  to 
make  out  the  rest  of  their  lives  as  best  they  can 
— remember  this:  Men  who  are  cut  off  in  their 
youth  from  life  and  love  will  prize  beyond  all 
things  woman's  sympathy,  and  the  sight  of 
woman's  beauty.  Give,  your  money  to  build; 
your  hands  to  lead  them  home;  and,  when  they 
are  there,  take  them  your  sympathy,  take  them 
your  beauty ! 


317 


CARTOON 

(From  "  The  English  Nation,"  1916) 


•       •       • 


I  cannot  describe  the  street  I  turned  into, 
then,  like  no  street  I  have  ever  been  in;  so  long, 
so  narrow,  so  regular,  yet  somehow  so  unsub- 
stantial; one  had  continually  a  feeling  that,  walk- 
ing at  the  gray  houses  on  either  side,  one  would 
pass  through  them.  I  must  have  gone  miles 
down  it  without  meeting  even  the  shadow  of  a 
human  being;  till,  just  as  it  was  growing  dusk,  I 
saw  a  young  man  come  silently  out,  as  I  suppose, 
from  a  door,  though  none  was  opened.  I  can  de- 
pict neither  his  dress  nor  figure;  like  the  street 
he  looked  unsubstantial,  and  the  expression  on 
his  shadowy  face  haunted  me,  it  was  so  like 
that  of  a  starving  man  before  whom  one  has  set 
a  meal,  then  snatched  it  away.  And  now,  in  the 
deepening  dusk,  out  of  every  house,  young  men 
like  him  were  starting  forth  in  the  same  mysterious 
manner,  all  with  that  hungry  look  on  their  almost 
invisible  faces. 
Peering  at  one  of  them,  I  said: 
"What  is  it — whom  do  you  want?" 
But  he  gave  me  no  answer.  It  was  too  dark 
now  to  see  any  face;  and  I  had  only  the  feeling 

318 


CARTOON 

of  passing  between  presences  as  I  went  along, 
without  getting  to  any  turning  out  of  that  end- 
less street.  Presently,  in  desperation,  I  doubled 
in  my  tracks. 

A  lamplighter  must  have  been  following  me, 
for  every  lamp  was  lighted,  giving  a  faint  flicker- 
ing greenish  glare,  as  might  lumps  of  phosphores- 
cent matter  hung  out  in  the  dark.  The  hungry, 
phantom-like  young  men  had  all  vanished,  and  I 
was  wondering  where  they  could  have  gone, 
when  I  saw — some  distance  ahead — a  sort  of 
grayish  whirlpool  stretching  across  the  street, 
under  one  of  those  flickering  marsh-light  looking 
lamps.  A  noise  was  coming  from  that  swirl, 
which  seemed  to  be  raised  above  the  ground — a 
ghostly  swishing,  as  of  feet  among  dry  leaves, 
broken  by  the  gruntings  of  some  deep  sense 
gratified.  I  went  on  till  I  could  see  that  it  was 
formed  of  human  figures  slowly  whirling  round  the 
lamp.  And  suddenly  I  stood  still  in  horror.  Every 
other  figure  was  a  skeleton,  and  between  danced 
a  young  girl  in  white — the  whole  swirling  ring 
was  formed  alternately  of  skeletons  and  gray- 
white  girls.  Creeping  a  little  nearer  still,  I  could 
tell  that  these  skeletons  were  the  young  men  I 
had  seen  starting  out  of  the  houses  as  I  passed, 
having  the  same  look  of  awful  hunger  on  their 
faces.    And  the  girls  who  danced  between  them 

319 


THE  WAR 

had  a  wan,  wistful  beauty,  turning  their  eyes 
to  their  partners  whose  bony  hands  grasped  theirs, 
as  though  begging  them  to  return  to  the  flesh. 
Not  one  noticed  me,  so  deeply  were  they  all  ab- 
sorbed in  their  mystic  revel.  And  then  I  saw 
what  it  was  they  were  dancing  round.  Above 
their  heads,  below  the  greenish  lamp,  a  dark  thing 
was  dangling.  It  swung  and  turned  there,  never 
still,  like  a  joint  of  meat  roasting  before  a  fire — ■ 
the  clothed  body  of  an  elderly  man.  The  green- 
ish lamplight  glinted  on  his  gray  hair,  and  on 
his  features,  every  time  the  face  came  athwart 
the  light.  He  swung  slowly  from  right  to  left, 
and  the  dancers  as  slowly  whirled  from  left  to 
right,  always  meeting  that  revolving  face,  as 
though  to  enjoy  the  sight  of  it.  What  did  it 
mean — these  sad  shapes  rustling  round  the  ob- 
scene thing  suspended  there !  What  strange  and 
awful  rite  was  I  watching  by  the  lamp's  ghostly 
phosphorescence?  More  haunting  even  than 
those  hungry  skeletons  and  wan  gray  girls,  more 
haunting  and  gruesome,  was  that  dead  face  up 
there  with  the  impress  still  on  it  of  bloated  life; 
how  it  gripped  and  horrified  me,  with  its  pale, 
fishy  eyes,  and  its  neck  thick-rolled  with  flabby 
flesh,  turning  and  turning  on  its  invisible  spit,  to 
the  sound  of  that  weird  swishing  of  dead  leaves, 
and  those  grunting  sighs !    Who  was  it  they  had 

320 


CARTOON 

caught  and  swung  up  there,  like  some  dead  crow, 
to  sway  in  the  winds?  This  gibbeted  figure, 
which  yet  had  a  look  of  cold  and  fattened  power 
— what  awful  crime  toward  these  skeleton  youths 
and  bereaved  gray-wan  maidens  could  it  be  expi- 
ating? 

Then  with  a  shudder  I  seemed  to  recognise 
that  grisly  thing — suddenly  I  knew:  I  was  watch- 
ing the  execution  of  the  Past !  There  it  swung ! 
Gibbeted  by  the  Future,  whom,  through  its  mani- 
fold lusts  it  had  done  to  death !  And  seized  with 
panic  I  ran  forward  through  the  fabric  of  my 
dream,  that  swayed  and  rustled  to  left  and  right 
of  me.  .  .  . 


321 


HARVEST 

(From  The  Book  of  The  Homeless,  1916) 

The  sky  to-night  looks  as  if  a  million  bright 
angels  were  passing — a  gleaming  cloud-mesh 
drawn  across  the  heavens.  One  star,  very  clear, 
shines  beside  a  full  moon  white  as  the  globe- 
campion  flower.  The  hills  and  valleys,  the  corn- 
stooks,  casting  each  its  shadow,  the  gray  boles 
of  the  beeches — all  have  the  remoteness  of  an 
ineffable  peace.  And  the  past  day  was  so  soft, 
so  glamorous;  such  a  hum,  such  brightness,  and 
the  harvest  going  on.  .  .  . 

These  last  years  millions  have  died  with  energy 
but  one-third  spent;  millions  more  unripe  for 
death  will  yet  herald  us  into  the  long  shades 
before  these  shambles  cease — boys  born  just  to 
be  the  meat  of  war,  spitted  on  each  other's  red- 
dened bayonets,  without  inkling  of  guilt  or  knowl- 
edge. To  what  shall  we  turn  that  we  may  keep 
sane,  watching  this  green,  unripe  corn,  field  on 
field,  being  scythed  by  Death  for  none  to  eat? 
There  is  no  solace  in  the  thought  that  Death  is 
nothing! — save  for  those  who  still  believe  they 
go  straight  to  paradise.  To  us  who  dare  not  know 
the  workings  of  the  Unknowable,   and  in  our 

322 


HARVEST 

heart  of  hearts  cannot  tell  what,  if  anything,  be- 
comes of  us — to  us,  the  great  majority  of  the 
modern  world — life  is  valuable,  good,  a  thing 
worth  living  out  for  its  natural  span.  For,  if 
it  were  not,  long  ere  this  we  should  have  sat  with 
folded  arms,  lifting  no  hand  till  the  last  sighing 
breath  of  the  human  race  had  whispered  itself 
out  into  the  wind,  and  a  final  darkness  come;  sat, 
like  the  Hindu  Yogi,  watching  the  sun  and  moon 
a  little,  and  expired.  The  moon  would  be  as 
white,  and  the  sun  as  golden  if  we  were  gone,  the 
hills  and  valleys  as  mysterious,  the  beech-trees 
just  as  they  are,  only  the  stooks  of  corn  would 
vanish  with  those  who  garner  them.  If  life  were 
not  good  we  should  make  of  ourselves  dust  in- 
differently— we  human  beings;  quietly,  peacefully 
— not  in  murderous  horror  reaped  by  the  curving 
volleys,  mown  off  by  rains  of  shrapnel  and  the 
long  yellow  scythe  of  the  foul  gases.  But  life  is 
good,  and  no  living  thing  wishes  to  die;  even  they 
who  kill  themselves,  despairing,  resign  out  of 
sheer  love  of  life,  out  of  craving  for  what  they 
have  found  too  mutilated  and  starved,  out  of 
yearning  for  their  meed  of  joy  cruelly  frustrated. 
And  they  who  die  that  others  may  live  are  but 
those  in  whom  the  life-flame  burns  so  hot  and 
bright  that  they  can  feel  the  life  and  the  longing 
to  live  in  others  as  if  it  were  their  own — more 

323 


THE  WAR 

than  their  own.  Yes,  life  carries  with  it  a  very 
passion  for  existence. 

To  what,  then,  shall  we  turn  that  we  may  keep 
sane,  watching  this  harvest  of  too  young  deaths, 
the  harvest  of  the  brave,  whose  stooks  are  raised 
before  us,  casting  each  its  shadow  in  the  ironic 
moonlight  ?    Green  corn ! 

If,  having  watched  those  unripe  blades  reaped 
off  and  stacked  so  pitifully,  watched  the  great 
dark  Wagoner  clear  those  unmellowed  fields,  we 
let  their  sacrifice  be  vain;  if  we  sow  not,  here- 
after, in  a  peaceful  earth  that  which  shall  be- 
come harvest  more  golden  than  the  world  has 
seen — then  shame  on  us,  unending,  in  whatever 
land  we  dwell.  .  .  . 

This  harvest  night  is  still.  And  yet,  up  there, 
the  bright  angels  are  passing.     One  star ! 


324 


AND— AFTER  ? 


AND— AFTER? 

(From  The  Observer,  1916) 


PRELUDE 

Peace!  The  thought  of  it  has  become  almost 
strange.  Yet,  we  must  face  that  thought,  or 
we  shall  be  as  unprepared  for  it  as  we  were  for 
war.  Practical  men  are  fighting  this  war,  practi- 
cal men  will  make  the  peace  that  comes  some  day. 
And  this  unpractical  pen  ventures  no  speculation 
on  how  it  will  be  brought  about;  it  jots  down 
merely  some  of  the  wider  thoughts  that  throng, 
when  for  a  moment  the  vision  of  peace  starts  up 
before  the  mind. 

Statesmen  have  said  that  the  sequel  of  this  war 
must  be  a  League  for  Peace — a  League  for  the 
enforcement  by  international  action  of  interna- 
tional right.  Whether  that  can  be  brought  about 
at  a  Round  Table  Conference  of  the  belligerents, 
or  whether  the  League  must  be  formed  by  the 
victorious  Allies  with  the  adherence  of  the  neutral 
countries,  and  the  Central  Empires  invited  to  fall 
in  with  their  conclusions,  on  pain  of  ostracism, 
I  hazard  here  no  opinion.    But,  by  whichever 

327 


AND— AFTER? 

means  the  League  for  Peace  is  formed,  it  will  be 
valueless  unless  three  elements  of  security  are 
present.  Due  machinery  to  secure  time  for  the 
arbitration  of  dispute;  due  force  to  secure  sub- 
mission to  such  arbitration;  due  intention  on  the 
part  of  individual  nations  to  serve  the  League 
loyally  for  the  good  of  all.  And  the  greatest  of 
these  three  is  the  last. 

The  strength  of  a  League  for  Peace  will  depend 
before  all  on  the  conduct  of  each  separate  nation. 
We  in  this  country  cannot  control  the  faith,  con- 
duct, or  stability  of  the  other  members  of  the 
League;  we  can  control  our  own. 

However  it  ends,  this  war  must  leave  the  bitter- 
est feelings.  League  for  Peace  or  none,  there  will 
remain  for  this  country  a  menace  from  without. 

If  Germany  were  what  is  called  "crushed" — 
a  queer  notion  in  connection  with  sixty-five 
millions  of  people,  she  would  smoulder  with  such 
a  fire  of  vengeance  that  a  victorious  British  na- 
tion, slumbering  in  dreams  of  security,  waxing 
fat  and  swollen-headed,  would  in  a  few  years' 
time  be  in  as  great  danger  as  ever.  If  Germany 
be  merely  shorn  of  her  pretensions,  and  forced 
back  within  her  former  boundaries,  then,  unless 
good  fortune  bring  her  a  social  revolution  and 
the  comparative  blessings  of  democracy,  Ger- 
many may  be  much  the  same  as  she  has  been,  a 
soldier-ridden  state,  quickly  or  slowly  gathering 

328 


PRELUDE 

force,  to  reforge  the  iron  machinery  of  the  Prus- 
sian soul,  and  lead  the  armoured  dance  again. 
Stung  to  the  quick  by  memory  of  mistake,  know- 
ing that  she  misjudged  our  nature  and  our  power, 
she  will  not  make  mistake  a  second  time.  How- 
ever ardently  the  successful  may  desire  to  forget 
— it  takes  two  to  bury  the  hatchet.  Let  no  one 
think  that  Germany  will  forget.  Should  we,  if 
we  were  beaten,  or  even  badly  thwarted  ? 

The  writer  is  as  great  a  lover  of  peace  as  any 
who  will  resent  his  suggestion  that  enmity  will 
not  readily  be  changed.  But  it  is  well  to  remem- 
ber that  the  menace  from  without  is  only  in- 
creased by  forgetting  that  human  nature  is  fun- 
damentally the  same  all  the  world  over;  and  still 
more  increased  by  not  remembering  that  what  we 
dream  and  desire  is  not  as  a  rule  what  we  can 
obtain.  Granted,  that  all  must  hope  and  strive 
for  the  constitution  of  a  League  for  Peace,  and 
aim  at  making  its  conditions  permanent,  it  will 
still  be  folly  to  blink  the  contingency  of  further 
war  for  years  to  come. 

The  validity  of  such  a  league  will  hang  on  the 
first  years.  Keep  it  intact,  enforce  respect  for 
its  decisions,  get  men's  minds  used  to  it,  and  after 
a  short  span  nothing  is  more  unlikely  than  that 
they  will  forego  its  blessings.  But  militarism  will 
automatically  and  proportionately  decrease,  only 
as  men  gain  confidence  in  the  League's  authority, 

329 


AND— AFTER? 

recognising  at  last  that  an  impartial  justice  may- 
apply  to  nations  every  bit  as  well  as  to  individ- 
uals, when  there  is  the  force  of  general  consent 
behind  it.  Given  a  generation  of  its  rule,  and 
the  nations  will  no  longer  carry  daggers  to  stab 
each  other  in  the  back  or  swords  to  avenge  their 
'  honour. '  There  is  no  need  for  premature  dis- 
armament. Recognition  of  the  menace  from 
without  will  not  harm  a  League  for  Peace  during 
its  first  years,  so  long  as  we  shy  at  all  spirit  of 
aggression  and  are  loyal  to  its  first  principle  of 
'All  for  one,  and  one  for  all.' 

But  peace  will  also  bring  to  us  in  England  the 
menace  from  within  which  was  visible  before  the 
war  began,  as  it  is  with  every  nation  the  menace 
of  its  individual  failings,  of  its  rankness  and  its 
uncompleted  justice,  its  riot  after  riches  at  the  ex- 
pense of  national  health,  its  exaggerated  party 
strife,  its  penny  wisdom  and  pound  folly,  its  lack 
of  an  ideal,  and  perpetual  drifting  it  knows  not 
whither.  If,  when  the  war  ends  we  remain  a 
nation,  masters  of  our  own  lives — and  there  is  no 
Briton  who  is  not  convinced  that  we  shall — the 
menace  from  within  must  again  be  faced;  faced 
with  a  stouter  heart  and  a  quicker  brain;  faced 
at  last  with  some  sort  of  corporate  will  to  that 
victory  over  ourselves,  so  much  more  difficult  to 
win  than  over  hostile  fleets  and  fortresses.  To 
win  the  war,  and   thereafter  lose  to  our  own 

330 


PRELUDE 

weakness,  would  cap  the  event  with  irony  in- 
deed! 

It  is  the  fashion  with  some  to  talk  glibly  of 
this  war  as  if  it  were  a  purge  that  will  drain  from 
our  state  innumerable  ills.  The  war's  honour- 
able necessity  none  of  us  dispute,  but  it  has  in 
truth  only  the  one  advantage  of  having  revealed 
to  us  and  others  our  quality,  re-established  our 
faith  in  ourselves.  That  quality,  that  faith,  to  be 
of  any  lasting  use,  will  have  to  stand  not  only  the 
dreadful  spasm  of  war,  but  the  long  exhaustion, 
the  manifold  increase  of  economic  stress  and  social 
trouble  that  will  infallibly  begin  when  the  war 
ends.  Unless  we  are  resolved  to  carry  on  our 
effort  of  sacrifice,  good-will,  and  courage  long  into 
the  future,  the  last  state  of  this  land  will  be  worse 
than  the  first.  The  purge  that  we  like  to  speak 
of  will  be  proven  nothing  but  a  debauch,  paid  for, 
like  all  debauches,  by  lassitude  and  spleen. 

All  national  energy  at  the  moment  is  inevitably 
bent  to  the  ending  of  a  state  of  things  dreadful 
to  eveiy  man  and  woman  living;  but  while  doing 
this  with  all  our  might,  we  need  to  keep  alive  in 
our  minds  the  feeling  that  the  fight  is  not  for 
mere  gratification  of  the  passion  to  down  our 
foes,  not  just  a  spurt  of  military  heroism  to  be 
drowned  in  the  drink  and  applause  of  victory, 
but  a  fight  for  something  abiding  in  ourselves  and 
in  the  world;  for  spiritual,  not  material  ends. 

331 


AND— AFTER? 

If,  even  while  we  are  at  war,  we  cannot  keep 
the  feeling  that  what  we  are  fighting  for  is  a 
permanent  and  steady  advance  in  the  just  and 
reasonable  life  of  nations,  beginning  with  ourselves, 
we  had  better  never  have  fought,  for  at  the  end 
we  shall  but  have  added  to  our  vanity,  and  taken 
from  the  stock  of  our  patience,  our  humanity,  and 
our  sense  of  justice.  And  so  the  feelings  of  the 
present  are  linked  with  the  feelings  and  necessi- 
ties that  will  arrive  with  peace.  If  the  fine 
phrases  we  have  used,  and  are  still  using,  about 
liberty,  humanity,  democracy,  and  peace  are 
not  genuinely  felt,  they  will  come  home  to  us 
and  roost  most  vilely.  By  the  outside  world  we 
shall  be  judged  according  to  the  measure  of 
actuality  we  give  hereafter  to  the  claim  we  now 
make  of  being  champion  of  freedom  and  human- 
ity; and  only  according  to  our  inward  habit  of 
thought  during  the  war  shall  we  be  able  to  act 
when  it  is  over.  We  can  do  nothing  now,  perhaps, 
save  prosecute  the  fight  to  its  appointed  end;  but  if 
we  are  not  to  turn  out  fraudulent  after  the  event, 
it  is  already  time  to  feel  ahead;  to  accustom  our 
minds  to  the  thought  of  the  future  efforts,  imperial 
and  social,  needful  to  meet  future  dangers,  and  to 
fulfil  the  trusts  we  shall  have  taken  up. 

From  facile  imaginings  and  Utopian  dreams  of 
a  purged  social  life  and  a  fortified  morale,  to  the 

332 


PRELUDE 

real  conditions  that  this  war  will  leave,  is  likely 
to  be  the  farthest  cry  any  of  us  will  ever  hear. 
We  cannot  have  it  both  ways.  If  war,  as  most 
of  us  believe,  is  a  terrible  calamity,  it  will  not 
leave  an  improved  world.  A  sloppy  optimism  is 
not  the  slightest  good,  no  more  than  a  deliberate 
pessimism.  "It  will  be  all  right  after  the  war!" 
is,  no  doubt,  the  attitude  of  many  minds  just 
now.  It  will  only  be  all  right  after  the  war  if, 
with  all  the  might  of  a  sustained  national  will,  we 
take  care  that  it  is.  A  great  and  solemn  oppor- 
tunity, the  greatest  our  country  has  ever  known, 
will  be  there,  to  be  made  or  marred.  The  records 
of  history  are  not  too  cheering,  and  experience 
of  human  nature  in  the  past  brings  no  very  happy 
augury — for,  after  too  great  effort  comes  reaction. 
But  this  age  has  higher  aspirations,  more  self- 
consciousness  than  any  that  has  gone  before. 
To  turn  the  possible  calamity  of  this  war  to  bless- 
ing, we  shall  have  to  set  our  foot  on  fatalism. 
There  is  no  real  antagonism  between  the  doc- 
trines of  determinism  and  free  will.  When  things 
have  happened,  we  see  that  they  must  have  hap- 
pened as  they  did,  but  how  does  this  affect  the 
freedom  of  our  will  before  they  happen — before 
we  know  which  way  they  will  turn  out?  Men 
and  nations  are  what  they  make  themselves. 
What  are  we  going  to  make  ourselves — After? 

333 


AND— AFTER? 

II 

FREEDOM  AND  PRIVILEGE 

What  is  this  thing  called  the  British  Empire? 
A  family  of  children  ruled  by  a  mother  or  a  gath- 
ering of  kinsfolk  under  the  roof  of  one  ideal?  Is 
it  in  reality  an  empire  or  a  confederacy  ?  It  has 
been  the  first,  it  is  fast  becoming  the  second. 

Imperialism  is  governed  for  good  or  ill  by  the 
principle  that  underlies  it.  At  the  time  of  the 
American  War  of  Independence  the  British  Gov- 
ernment stood  for  the  principle  of  domination; 
even  so  late  as  the  Boer  War  there  is  much  doubt 
whether,  for  the  moment  at  least,  it  stood  for 
anything  very  different.  A  great  change  has 
come.  The  British  Empire  stands  now,  as  it 
never  yet  stood,  for  the  principle,  'Live  and  let 
live';  for  coherence  through  common  ideals  and 
affections,  rather  than  for  coherence  through 
force.  In  this  war  we  have  not  ceased  to  as- 
sert that,  besides  the  preservation  of  our  own 
safety,  we  fight  for  the  independence  of  little 
countries  and  the  rights  of  nations  to  settle  their 
own  affairs.  By  this  declared  championship,  un- 
less we  wish  to  bring  down  poetic  justice  on  our 
heads,  we  have  consecrated  the  principle  of  free- 
dom within  the  confederacy  of  the  British  Em- 

334  * 


FREEDOM  AND  PRIVILEGE 

pire;  we  have  abrogated  the  right  of  coercion. 
Whether  we  realise  it  or  no,  we  have  fixed  our 
national  attitude. 

When  the  war  is  over,  the  feeling  of  Britain 
toward  her  kindred  will  be  warmer  and  more 
generous  than  it  has  ever  been;  they  have  stood 
side  by  side  with  us  like  men  and  brothers,  in 
touching  loyalty.  And  the  feeling  in  the  kindred 
countries  will  be  warmer  and  fuller  of  respect; 
they  have  seen  the  Old  Country  on  her  trial,  have 
seen  that  she  did  not  fail  of  what  the  world  ex- 
pected from  her;  seen  that  she  had  stuff  in  her 
beyond  their  hopes — for  a  new  country  is  ever 
inclined  to  impatience,  even  to  a  certain  con- 
tempt for  an  old  country.  It  was  just  as  well 
for  Britain's  reputation  with  her  kinsfolk  that 
this  war  came. 

Yes,  we  shall  be  a  true  confederacy,  a  great 
democratic  confederacy,  bound  in  honour  to 
observe  toward  the  world  the  principles  that  it 
observes  toward  itself;  to  keep  its  hands  clean  of 
narrow  and  provincial  patriotism,  of  that  raw 
overriding  of  the  rights  and  interests  of  others, 
the  ugliness  of  which  we  have  just  seen  in  the 
violation  of  Belgium,  the  Nemesis  of  which  we 
are  about  to  see. 

And,  looking  first  at  home,  we  have  got  to 
get  used  now,  at  once,  while  we  are  still  fighting, 
before  we  have  the  leisure  and  the  energy  to 

335 


AND— AFTER? 

revive  old  animosities  and  party  cries,  to  the 
idea  that  civil  strife  in  Ireland  after  this  war  is 
over  would  be  criminal  lunacy,  making  us  the 
play-boy  of  the  world,  and  destroying  the  pres- 
tige we  shall  have  gained.  It  seems  that  our 
statesmen  now  recognise  this.  But  whatever 
seems  to  settle  the  Irish  question  in  time  of  war, 
may  not  survive  the  strain  of  the  peace  that  fol- 
lows. If  the  lamentable  cleavage  in  Ireland  reap- 
pears— as  it  well  may,  for  it  is  based  on  such  real 
differences  of  temperament — let  us  in  England  be 
resolute  not  to  be  reinvolved  in  partisanship. 
Let  us  resolve  to  force  neither  one  party  nor  the 
other;  confine  ourselves  to  insisting  that  those 
who  object  so  strenuously  to  inclusion  in  an  op- 
posite camp  shall  be  as  loth  to  include  their  op- 
ponents as  they  are  to  be  included.  Only  of  its 
own  free  will  can  Ireland  ever  be  made  one.  If 
the  halves  be  not  forced,  they  will  become  one 
the  faster.  Time  is  the  healer;  time  and  forbear- 
ance, given  an  elastic  machinery  to  encourage 
and  ripen  reconciliation.  Of  a  surety,  renewed 
trouble  over  Ireland  would  be  the  very  worst 
augury  for  the  future  of  an  empire  that  stands, 
and  is  to  stand,  for  freedom. 

To  be  trustee  for  the  principle,  'Live  and  let 
live';  watch-dog  against  aggression  by  herself  or 
any  other;  cornerstone  of  a  world  so  built  that  all 

336 


FREEDOM  AND  PRIVILEGE 

peoples,  however  small  and  weak,  may  know  that 
they  can  safely  work  out  their  own  destinies — 
that  would  be  for  Britain  the  grand  ideal.  But 
the  British  Empire  can  only  hope  to  stand  for  it 
by  keeping  the  form  of  a  free  confederacy,  by 
the  most  rigid  scrutiny  of  its  own  conduct,  and 
by  developing  the  feeling  that  it  is  beneath  im- 
perial dignity  to  wrest  material  benefit  from  the 
losses  of  others. 

When  the  war  began  we  were  in  what  is  com- 
monly called  'a  tidy  mess/  If  we  realty  want  to 
extract  from  the  furnace  of  this  fearful  conflagra- 
tion some  gold  of  comfort,  we  shall  see  to  it  that 
we  do  not  go  back  to  the  deadlock  of  futile  and 
bitter  strife  that  was  then  paralysing  the  coun- 
try's soul.  We  shall  see  to  it  over  Ireland;  and 
over  the  woman's  question.  Strife  is  the  very 
condition  of  life  and  human  progress,  but  in  the 
name  of  reason  let  us  have  it  over  real  live  issues, 
not  over  those  on  which  the  national  conscience 
has  already  in  secret  given  judgment.  Will  not 
the  first  act  of  justice  be  the  giving  of  the  vote  to 
women,  on  the  same  terms  as  to  men — with,  per- 
haps, some  limitation  of  age  to  equalise  numbers, 
since  the  preponderance  of  women  is  brought 
about  mainly  by  the  less  dangerous  nature  of  their 
lives  ?  A  more  humiliating  or  poisonous  relation 
than  that  which  prevailed  between  the  sexes  in 

337 


AND— AFTER? 

this  country  before  the  war,  over  the  question  of 
the  vote,  can  hardly  be  conceived.  In  the  su- 
preme appeal  to  our  patriotism,  that  grievous 
trouble,  that  mischievous  irritation,  has  vanished. 
The  war  has  exorcised  mutual  exasperation,  re- 
founded  mutual  faith,  healed  many  wounds,  laid 
the  ghosts  of  many  doubts  and  arguments.  The 
old  bogeys  are  gone — that  women  are  more  belli- 
cose than  men;  that  they  are  less  bellicose  than 
men;  that  national  safety  would  be  imperilled 
one  way  or  the  other.  The  old  plea  is  gone — 
that,  since  women  do  not  fight  and  suffer  for  the 
state,  they  are  not  worthy  to  vote  for  her — gone, 
dispersed  by  service,  sacrifice,  and  suffering. 
Every  man  has  had  to  ask  his  heart  which  he 
would  rather  do:  Go,  as  a  man  goes,  to  the 
trenches,  or  sit  at  home  as  a  woman  has  had  to 
do,  waiting  for  news  of  his  life  or  death.  And 
every  man  knows  the  answer. 

The  women  of  Britain  have  put  themselves  and 
their  claims  aside,  to  work  and  suffer  for  the 
country  of  which  they  are  not  yet  citizens.  It 
will  be  too  black  altogether  if,  after  all  they  have 
gone  through,  they  are  again  refused  admittance 
to  that  citizenship. 

Women  who  do  not  want  the  vote  need  never  exer- 
cise it;  women  who  think  the  vote  bad  for  their 
sex  will  still  be  free  as  air,  when  the  vote  has 

338 


FREEDOM  AND  PRIVILEGE 

been  given,  to  organise  their  sex  against  use  of  the 
deadly  thing.  But  to  continue  after  this  war  to 
debar  from  being  citizens,  if  they  so  wish,  the 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  women  who  have  served 
as  loyally  as  men,  and  suffered  more;  to  hang  up 
again  in  hopeless  chancery  a  measure  of  common 
justice  that  has  long  commended  itself  to  nearly 
all  the  best  minds  in  the  country;  a  measure  that, 
but  for  political  accidents,  would  have  already 
been  granted — would  be  an  unspeakable  piece  of 
national  folly  and  ingratitude.  There  is  surely 
now  a  general  will  to  give  the  vote.  What  our 
minds  must  be  turned  to  is  the  need,  at  the  con- 
clusion of  the  war,  to  have  ready  some  means  by 
which  that  general  desire  may  be  carried  into  ef- 
fect, and  women  welcomed  into  the  body  politic, 
before  the  old  deadlock  difficulties  and  heartburn- 
ings can  begin  again. 

It  is  not  my  part  to  suggest  to  superior  wisdom 
what  those  means  should  be;  but  perhaps  one 
may  express  the  personal  conviction  that  a 
measure  of  universal  suffrage,  granting  one  vote 
to  every  man  above  a  certain  age  (not  necessarily 
so  young  as  twenty-one),  and  one  vote  to  every 
woman  possibly  over  such  higher  age  as  would 
equalise  the  voting  power  of  the  sexes;  though  I 
myself  do  not  fear  that  inequality — that  such 
a  measure  would  not  affect  to  any  appreciable 

339 


AND— AFTER? 

extent  the  balance  between  the  great  parties  in 
the  State,  and  would  insure  that  those  parties 
in  future  sprang  from  the  main  cleavages  of  hu- 
man nature  rather  than  from  the  accidents  of 
privilege.  Is  it  too  much  to  hope  that,  in  heroic 
times,  such  a  measure  might  be  passed  by  con- 
sent ?  Too  much  to  expect  that  after  this  struggle 
where  all  stand  shoulder  to  shoulder,  we  shall 
feel  that  a  man,  however  poor,  and  a  woman, 
however  humble,  has  a  stake  in  the  country 
which  has  done  so  little  for  him  or  her,  yet  for 
which  he  or  she  is  suffering  perhaps  more  than 
the  rest  of  us,  and,  extending  the  hand  of  fellow- 
ship, say:  'It  is  time  you  stood  shoulder  to  shoul- 
der with  us  in  peace  as  well  as  war/  The  voteless 
man !  The  woman  !  How  many  of  the  first  will 
have  given  their  lives;  how  many  of  the  second 
— their  hearts?  Have  heroism,  death,  sacrifice 
gone  by  privilege  of  property  or  sex  in  this  war? 
Shall  we  really  take  the  lives,  the  wounds,  the 
sufferings  of  the  many  men  debarred  from  citi- 
zenship by  mere  lack  of  property,  the  service  and 
sacrifice  of  innumerable  women,  and  just  say: 
'Thank  you,  helots!'  For  in  a  real  democracy 
what  is  he  or  she  who  has  no  vote,  save  a  helot, 
at  the  absolute  disposal  of  the  enfranchised  com- 
munity ?  It  is  as  the  symbol  of  freedom  that  the 
vote  is  so  precious !  Granted !  And  if,  from  the 
infancy  of  this  country  we  had  not  been  sticklers 

340 


THE  NATION  AND  TRAINING 

for  symbols,  should  we  now  be  the  free  people  that 
we  are — as  peoples  go  ? 

If  there  is  not  to  emerge  from  this  community 
of  suffering,  some  community  of  fellowship  and 
gladness,  some  sweeping  out  of  old  rancours 
from  our  hearts  and  of  prejudices  from  our 
brains,  and  a  resolve  to  fight  the  contests  of  the 
future  with  a  greater  generosity — then  peace  will 
be  a  sorry  festival. 

There  is  so  much  work  to  be  done,  so  great  a 
fight  for  the  nation's  health,  ahead.  It  is  time 
the  decks  were  cleared  of  lumber ! 


Ill 
THE   NATION   AND   TRAINING 

We  have  adopted  compulsion,  become  a  mil- 
itarist power!  Melancholy  consummation;  but 
for  the  period  of  the  war  it  was  always,  I  think, 
a  foregone  conclusion.  What  is  to  happen  after  ? 
How  is  national  security  to  be  guaranteed  with- 
out permanent  surrender  to  this  militarism? 

Assuming  that  attention  will  be  paid  to  re- 
taining due  command  at  sea  and  in  the  air,  what 
further  will  be  necessary  to  fit  us  for  our  part 
in  a  League  for  Peace  if  it  comes,  or,  if  it  does 
not  come,  to  make  us  safe? 

There  will  here  be  put  forward  in  roughest  out- 

341 


AND— AFTER? 

line  a  notion — long  in  the  writer's  mind,  but  for 
which  there  has  seemed  hitherto  little  chance  of 
serious  consideration — with  the  plea  that  there  is 
really  no  alternative  solution  commensurate  with 
the  need  for  being  thoroughly  prepared,  no  other 
adequate  way,  in  fact,  out  of  a  dilemma,  short 
of  retaining  a  measure  of  continental  militarism 
repugnant  to  our  traditions  and  ruinously  costly 
to  a  people  in  our  position. 

Put  with  the  utmost  brevity  it  is  this:  That  all 
boys  between  the  ages  of  fourteen  and  eighteen, 
not  then  at  school,  shall  pass  four  months  yearly 
in  camps,  which  shall  give  them  continuation 
schooling  so  far  as  practicable,  technical  education 
in  the  craft,  trade,  or  occupation  for  which  the 
boy  is  best  suited  or  intends  to  adopt,  together 
with  training  in  all  the  essentials  of  a  soldier's 
life.  At  the  close  of  their  fourth  training  the  boys 
should  be  affiliated  to  territorial  regiments,  and 
pass  at  once  to  one  definite  period  of  military 
service,  from  three  to  six  months,  as  may  be 
necessary  to  convert  them  into  potential  soldiers; 
and  that,  from  that  point  on,  we  should  rely,  as 
hitherto,  on  purely  voluntary  service.  From  such 
a  nucleus  a  really  efficient  territorial  force  of  at 
least  a  million  could  probably  be  enrolled,  and  the 
skeleton  of  a  much  larger  force  kept  in  being. 

The  scheme  is  admittedly  heroic,  but  it  could  be 

342 


THE  NATION  AND  TRAINING 

as  gingerly  introduced  as  seemed  good  to  more 
practical  men  than  is  this  writer. 

There  are  in  England,  Scotland,  and  Wales 
some  1,500,000  boys  between  the  ages  of  four- 
teen and  eighteen;  there  are  eight  months  in 
the  year  when  such  education  and  training  could 
be  carried  on.  There  will  be  an  infinity  of  camps 
in  being  before  the  war  is  over.  And  however 
unsuited  these  camps  may  be  at  the  moment  for 
combining  technical  instruction  with  military 
training,  many  of  them  could  undoubtedly  be 
adapted.  The  chance  of  so  much  suitable  ma- 
terial at  hand,  so  much  organising  capacity,  and 
so  much  sense  of  awakened  public  spirit  and  ne- 
cessity, will  never  come  again.  Some  plan  more 
or  less  heroic  has  got  to  be  adopted,  and  it  is 
submitted  that  no  other  could  possibly  kill  so 
many  birds  with  one  stone.  For,  to  the  writer, 
this  proposal  is  even  more  important  in  relation 
to  the  menace  from  within,  than  in  relation  to  the 
menace  from  without. 

The  worst  feature  of  our  social  scheme  at  pres- 
ent— the  most  dangerous  flaw  in  the  machine — ■ 
is  the  waste,  the  absolute  throwing  away  of  the 
years  between  fourteen  and  eighteen,  the  most 
important  period  of  the  male  life  (and,  for  that 
matter,  of  the  female  life),  the  years  when 
physique  and  character  are  formed,  when  the 

343 


AND— AFTER? 

instrument  is  malleable;  years  for  the  most 
part  now  left  to  chance  and  to  blind-alley  occupa- 
tions. If  we  want  to  be  a  strong  and  healthy 
nation,  this  is  the  weakness  of  all  others  to  over- 
come. The  following  is  taken  from  the  introduc- 
tion to  Mr.  Arnold  Freeman's  intimate  and  care- 
ful book,  "Boy  Life  and  Labour": 

What  we  need  to  consider  is  not  the  sacrifice  of  a  cer- 
tain number  of  youths  through  faulty  industrial  arrange- 
ments, but  the  lack  of  training  and  the  manufacture  of 
inefficiency  in  the  majority  of  boys  between  school  and 
manhood. 

At  the  present  time  it  would  seem  to  be  the  consensus 
of  opinion  of  school-teachers,  employers,  and  all  those 
who  are  intimate  with  the  problem,  that  great  masses  of 
boys  are  growing  up  to  manhood  inefficient  for  adult 
work,  and  incapable  of  performing  the  elementary  duties 
of  home  life  and  citizenship.  The  truer  mode  of  regarding 
the  problem  may  be  illustrated  by  the  following  quotation: 

"According  to  the  main  statistical  sources  of  infor- 
mation the  very  serious  fact  emerges  that  between  70 
and  80  per  cent  of  the  boys  leaving  elementary  schools 
enter  unskilled  occupations.  Thus,  even  when  the  boy 
ultimately  becomes  apprenticed  or  enters  a  skilled  trade, 
these  intervening  years  from  the  national  point  of  view 
are  entirely  wasted.  Indeed  the  boy,  naturally  reacting 
from  the  discipline  to  which  school  accustomed  him,  usu- 
ally with  abundance  of  spare  time  not  sufficiently  utilised, 
and  without  educative  work,  is  shaped  during  these  years 
directly  toward  evil."  (Majority  Report  of  the  Poor  Law 
Commission.    Part  VI,  Chap.  VII.) 

344 


THE  NATION  AND  TRAINING 

Now,  if  the  richer  classes  of  this  country  could 
be  brought  face  to  face  with  a  sight  of  their  own 
boys  from  fourteen  to  eighteen  planted  in  this 
morass  that  boys  of  the  poorer  classes  have,  as  a 
matter  of  course,  to  struggle  through,  they  would 
marvel  that  the  poorer  classes  have  not  long  ago 
demanded  that  it  be  drained.  Working-class 
parents  have  not  demanded  this,  chiefly  because 
the  boy  from  fourteen  to  eighteen  has  meant  so 
many  scanty  shillings  in  the  family  pocket. 
When  shillings  are  scarce,  one  more  or  less  seems 
vital.  But  economically  as  well  as  nationally 
speaking,  such  rotting-down  of  the  boys  is  griev- 
ously short-sighted.  By  this  scheme,  I  believe, 
the  working  classes  would  be  the  first  to  benefit, 
and,  after  a  few  years,  the  last  to  wish  it  given  up. 
Their  ultimate  gain  would  be  incalculable,  and, 
collectively  speaking,  their  immediate  loss  even 
would  be  small.  One  million  five  hundred  thou- 
sand boys  training  four  months  in  the  year  means 
a  seeming  withdrawal  of  one  boy  in  three,  or  half 
a  million  boys  annually,  from  labour.  But  the 
number  of  boys  between  fourteen  and  eighteen 
actually  employed  before  the  war  was  only  1,264,- 
000,  so  that  there  would  be  available  some  un- 
employed toward  filling  the  places  of  the  half 
million  withdrawn.  In  the  withdrawal,  too,  of 
so  large  a  number  of  boys  from  the  labour  mar- 

345 


AND— AFTER? 

ket  lies  some  chance  of  solving  a  problem  that 
will  begin  to  loom  as  soon  as  peace  comes:  How 
to  find  places  for  the  women  whom  the  war  has 
accustomed  to  work  and  wages!  By  this  with- 
drawal, also,  elderly  and  unemployed  men  would 
benefit;  we  shall  want  all  the  help  we  can 
get  to  minimise  the  unemployment  that  will 
sooner  or  later  follow  the  war.  So  far  as  the 
labour  market  is  concerned,  the  problem,  in  fact, 
would  be  mainly  one  of  adjustment;  but  boys 
could  be  paired  for  their  four  years  of  training, 
one  taking  the  other's  job — boy  A  working 
eight  months  the  first  and  third  years  and  four 
months  the  second  and  fourth  years;  vice  versa 
with  boy  B.  A  nation  which  has  achieved  in 
these  last  few  months  such  miracles  of  organisation 
is  surely  equal  to  a  task  of  adjustment  no  harder 
of  accomplishment  than  that  which  has  long  con- 
fronted every  militarist  country  in  time  of  peace, 
and  which  may  at  any  moment  confront  this 
country,  if  it  neglects  adequate  preparation  for 
home  defence  on  some  such  lines. 

Consider  the  life  of  the  working  man  at  pres- 
ent. The  State  provides  him  as  a  boy  with  edu- 
cation up  to  the  age  of  fourteen;  provides  him  as 
a  man  with  labour  exchanges,  insurances,  and 
old-age  pensions.  The  one  period  which  in  the 
more  fortunate  ranks  of  society  is  regarded  as 

346 


THE  NATION  AND  TRAINING 

above  all  preparatory  for  life,  is  the  one  period 
of  which  the  State  takes  no  account.  It  is  a 
fatal  hole  in  the  ballot.  Why  should  not  the 
workers  have  the  privilege  for  their  sons  that 
belongs  by  mere  good  fortune  to  the  wealthier 
classes — the  privilege  of  a  training  that  will 
give  them  greater  health,  greater  knowledge  and 
technical  skill,  better  habits,  more  self-respect, 
and  the  power  as  well  as  the  inclination  to  defend 
their  country  if  need  be? 

After  this  war  the  national  readjustments  that 
take  place  to  meet  the  menace  from  without  and 
the  menace  from  within  must  surely  have  relation 
to  fundamental  necessities,  and  not  merely  be 
the  top-dressing  and  timorous  expedients  that  ac- 
company the  piping  times  of  a  long-unshaken 
peace. 

In  the  expenditure  of  large  sums  to  achieve  its 
ends,  the  State  need  not  look  for  its  money  back 
this  year  or  next,  so  long  as  there  is  a  certainty 
of  the  money  back  manifold  ten  and  twenty 
years  hence. 

The  expense  of  a  national  scheme  for  the  train- 
ing and  technical  education  of  all  boys  from  four- 
teen to  eighteen  would  have  been  looked  on  be- 
fore the  war  as  an  insuperable  objection.  But  the 
truly  wonderful  example  of  faith  shown  by  the 
Russian  Government  in  cutting  off  their  own 

347 


AND— AFTER? 

colossal  revenue  from  drink  at  the  outbreak  of 
the  war,  and  the  immediate  incalculable  advan- 
tage to  the  strength  of  the  Russian  nation  that 
accrued  thereby,  has  knocked  penny  wisdom  off 
its  perch. 

This  is  not  the  time  or  place,  nor  am  I  qualified 
to  examine  the  cost  in  detail.  But,  whatever  that 
cost,  can  there  be  any  doubt  that  the  increased 
physical  and  industrial  efficiency,  coupled  with 
the  national  security  guaranteed  by  such  training, 
would  bring  the  outlay  back  tenfold  within  a 
generation?  And  can  there  be  any  question  that 
it  would  conserve  wealth,  which  adult  training 
would  but  dissipate?  When  the  war  is  over 
there  will  be  great  numbers  of  men  whose  lives 
have  been  hopelessly  jolted,  who  have  to  find 
new  occupations;  men  qualified  and  probably 
only  too  willing  to  take  positions  of  technical 
instruction  and  military  training  under  such  a 
scheme.  And  the  boys  of  the  nation,  already  in- 
fected with  desire  to  stand  for  something  in  the 
national  security,  would  fall  in  with  good  spirit. 

Apart  from  the  question  of  expense,  opposition 
would  come,  no  doubt,  from  the  employers  of 
boy  labour,  and  from  the  working-class  parents 
of  boys  who  are  contributing  to  the  family  purse. 

Both  these  objections  can  surely  be  met  in  the 
main  by  careful  organisation  and  dovetailing  of 

348 


THE  NATION  AND  TRAINING 

employment.  Only  half  the  boys  would  be  train- 
ing at  once;  and  for  the  winter  months,  of  great- 
est stress  for  the  poorer  classes,  none  would  be 
training;  boys'  labour  is  not  highly  skilled  labour; 
it  is  rarely  of  a  nature  that  cannot  equally  well 
be  supplied  by  another  boy,  and,  failing  that,  by 
women,  or  men  past  the  prime  of  work.  With 
good-will  and  co-operation  it  should  not  surpass 
the  wit  either  of  employers  or  of  the  officials  of 
special  boy-labour  exchanges  to  cope  with  the  dis- 
location. A  boy's  earnings  are  not  vast;  when  his 
own  keep  has  been  paid  there  remain  but  few 
shillings  for  the  family  exchequer.  The  value 
of  these  few  shillings  is  in  many  cases,  however, 
enormous;  the  loss  might  be  made  good  by  some 
system  of  insurance.  Nor  is  it  inconceivable  that 
camp  work  would  produce  a  small  wage  that  could 
go  to  the  assistance  of  the  boys'  families.  Ome- 
lets cannot  be  made  without  breaking  eggs;  and 
even  if  distress  were  caused  at  the  start,  can  it 
be  seriously  weighed  against  the  great  ultimate 
benefit  to  the  working  classes,  and  the  over- 
whelming advantages  of  rejuvenation  in  the  blood 
and  brain  of  a  whole  nation  ?  The  war  has  shown 
what  those  who  have  had  to  do  with  camp  life 
for  boys  knew  well  before — the  vast  change  that 
can  be  made  in  the  physique  and  bearing  of  )roung 
fellows,  by  a  few  months  of  fresh  air  and  training. 

349 


AND— AFTER? 

If  those  months  are  repeated  yearly  for  four 
years,  the  training  combined  with  civil  instruc- 
tion, and  followed  by  a  short  spell  of  full  military 
service,  the  country  will  have  not  only  potential 
soldiers,  but  real  men  and  citizens  at  the  end. 

This  is  interference  with  the  liberty  of  the 
subject !  Yes,  but  a  boy  is  only  a  boy.  In  the 
richer  classes  he  is  sent  to  school  till  he  is  eighteen 
without  any  say  whatever  in  his  fate.  And  as  to 
interference  with  the  liberty  of  the  parents:  Are 
they  not  now  completely  interfered  with,  in  refer- 
ence to  their  children  up  to  the  age  of  fourteen; 
and  is  there  any  sane  reason  why  that  interfer- 
ence should  not  be  continued  partially,  for  the 
good  of  the  boys  and  of  us  all,  up  to  the  age  of 
eighteen  ? 

The  scheme  is  nothing  but  a  form  of  mili- 
tarism! Yes,  but  facts  must  be  faced.  After 
the  lesson  of  this  war,  its  appalling  suddenness, 
its  complete  disregard  of  the  law  of  nations, 
after  the  hatred  it  has  evoked  and  the  burning  for 
revenge  it  will  leave — are  we  prepared  to  trust 
our  country  and  all  that  it  stands  for,  to  old-time 
methods  and — luck?  If  not,  what  form  of  train- 
ing can  we  have  that  will  be  less  militarist  than 
this?  To  relapse  into  our  unpreparedness  is 
but  to  court  the  chances  of  an  attack,  to  shirk 
our  share  perhaps  of  duty  under  a  League  for 

350 


THE  NATION  AND  TRAINING 

Peace;  and  to  risk  being  forced  into  rank  mili- 
tarism, in  one  of  those  panics  certain  to  come 
freely  after  such  a  war.  If  I  thought  such  a 
scheme  of  boy  training  would  bolster  up  privilege, 
foster  a  dangerous  docility,  put  power  into  the 
hands  of  our  junkers,  and  generally  convert  our 
country  into  a  kind  of  Germany,  I  would  shun  it 
like  the  devil.  To  keep  boys  of  that  age  at  it  all 
the  time  would  be  dangerous;  to  train  them  for 
civil  and  military  life  four  months  in  the  year, 
with  one  short  final  period  of  military  service — 
harmless.  After  the  war — perhaps  not  at  once, 
but  within  a  few  years — there  will  almost  cer- 
tainly be  serious  civil  troubles,  and  any  such 
scheme  of  boy  training  would  need  to  be  inaugu- 
rated under  the  most  solemn  engagements  not 
to  employ  the  youth  of  the  nation  in  the  quelling 
of  strikes,  civil  riot,  or  what-not.  It  would  be 
for  labour  to  fix  those  guarantees  before  they  gave 
adherence  to  the  plan.  Having  secured  them- 
selves, I  believe  they  might  look  forward  to  noth- 
ing but  benefit,  after  the  first  rubs  and  jolts. 

Consider,  too,  that  except  under  some  such 
scheme  there  is  practically  no  chance  of  putting 
into  practice  another  national  dream — the  re- 
settlement of  the  land.  By  attaching  farm  lands 
to  these  camps,  town  boys  could  be  instructed  in 
the  difficult  work  of  modem  agriculture.    Farm 

351 


AND— AFTER? 

workers  do  not  grow  on  thorn-trees,  or  even 
spring  full-fledged  from  the  brains  of  ardent  re- 
formers. They  are  made,  not  born,  and  made 
in  youth.  It  is  time  to  begin  making  them,  if 
indeed  it  is  not  already  too  late.  No  adequate 
land  scheme  will  flourish  without  machinery  on  a 
large  scale  for  educating  boys  in  modern  farm 
work. 

But  there  is  another  aspect  of  this  matter  worth 
more  than  passing  attention.  If  the  war  ends 
victoriously,  Great  Britain  will  bulk  very  large, 
dangerously  large,  in  the  eyes  of  the  world.  The 
German  cry  is:  "Great  Britain  is  the  tyrant; 
the  fleet  of  England  is  the  menace,  threatening 
every  country!"  No  effort  will  be  left  untried 
to  din  that  whisper  into  every  ear,  to  implant 
that  suspicion  in  every  mind.  To  escape  the 
world's  jealousy  will  not  be  possible.  And,  if  in 
addition  to  a  dominant  fleet  and  possibly  a  domi- 
nant air  service,  we  preserve  militarism  on  the 
present  continental  lines,  we  shall  excite — what- 
ever the  peaceful  nature  of  our  conduct  and  in- 
tentions— the  most  profound  uneasiness  and  envy 
in  quarters  where  we  most  wish  to  be  regarded 
with  perfect  equanimity.  On  the  one  hand,  then, 
we  have  the  danger  of  relapsing  into  a  state  of 
unpreparedness  that  may  provoke  another  war; 
on  the  other,  the  danger  of  arousing  too  great 

352 


THE   NATION   AND  TRAINING 

fear  and  envy  by  an  ostentatious  strength,  and  of 
increasing  a  burden  of  armament  already  too 
heavy  on  our  shoulders.  Between  these  dangers 
lies  a  path  of  safety,  in  the  training  of  our  boys. 
But  there  lies  much  more  than  that.  There  lies 
the  grander  social  future  of  our  country,  an  in- 
calculable physical,  moral,  and  economic  uplift- 
ing; a  nation  more  self-reliant  and  more  eager, 
purged  of  that  don't-care  look,  of  the  town  blight 
which  was  settling  on  it  fast — there  is  no  nation 
suffering  from  town  blight  to  anything  like  the 
same  extent  as  ourselves.  Just  now  the  war  has 
lifted  that  blight;  but  with  peace  it  will  come 
down  again,  unless  we  fight  it. 

Is  this  lamely  outlined  plan  a  mere  dream,  or 
is  it  a  possible,  nay,  a  probable  measure,  in  times 
big  with  chances;  in  times  such  as  we  may  never 
have  again  for  tuning  up  our  life,  for  equalising 
fortune,  removing  foul  places  and  essential 
weakness  ? 

With  the  suggestion  that  it  is  worth  thinking 
over,  at  any  rate,  the  writer  leaves  the  answer 
to  those  less  fatuous  than  himself. 


353 


AND— AFTER? 

IV 

HEALTH,  HUMANITY,  AND  PROCEDURE 

What  were  already  glaring  national  ills  before 
the  war  will,  afterward,  be  ills  demanding  the 
most  immediate,  sustained,  and  resolute  attention. 

There  exists  in  America  a  vehicle  called  the 
"rubber-neck"  car,  in  which  the  tourist  is  taken 
and  shown  the  interesting  features  of  the  neigh- 
bourhood. Before  the  political  machine  settles 
down  again  to  work — legislators,  editors,  business 
men,  writers — we  might  all  with  profit  take  a 
round  trip  and  see  again  evils  that  our  country 
has  never  really  faced  in  the  past,  but  will  have 
to  face,  and  grievously  swollen  at  that,  in  the 
future.  At  the  back  of  all  lack  of  effort  is  lack 
of  realisation.  Statistics  of  national  problems 
may  foster  an  impersonal  and  scientific  attitude, 
but  they  do  nothing  to  supply  the  feeling  from 
which  alone  comes  driving  force. 

Take  our  slums!  The  powers  vested  in  the 
State  or  in  local  bodies,  for  dealing  with  slum 
areas,  are  obviously  either  not  sufficient  or  not 
sufficiently  put  to  use.  Not,  of  course,  that  any 
quick  or  light-hearted  transformation  can  be  ex- 
pected; the  roots  of  this  evil  are  too  tortuously 
coiled  in  economics  and  natural  selfishness. 

354 


HEALTH,  HUMANITY,  AND  PROCEDURE 

Still,  just  as  realisation  of  our  country's  danger 
at  the  hands  of  Germany  has  produced  a  marvel- 
lous crop  of  effort  and  sacrifice,  so  realisation  of 
the  equally  distressing  menace  to  the  country 
from  within  should  produce  something  similar, 
when  patriotic  attention  is  once  more  free,  and 
time  and  strength  at  liberty,  for  fighting  dangers 
at  home. 

The  housing  problem  desperately  needs  atten- 
tion; but  though  much  can  be  done,  good  gam- 
blers cut  their  losses,  and  the  adult  generation  of 
the  slums  has  got  more  or  less  to  be  cut,  that 
greater  effort  may  be  concentrated  on  the  chil- 
dren. 

The  war  has  focussed  attention  on  the  need  for 
arresting  infant  mortality.  Good !  But  there  is 
little  use  in  saving  babies  if  you  are  not  going 
to  feed  them  decently  when  they  are  out  of 
swaddling-clothes.  A  big  step  forward  has  been 
taken  of  late  years  toward  the  feeding  of  neces- 
sitous children,  both  at  school  and  in  creches,  but 
many  more  steps  need  to  be  taken.  If  this  is  not 
a  State  matter — then  nothing  is.  To  neglect  the 
nourishment  of  its  children  is  at  once  the  paltriest 
economy,  the  least  sagacious  policy,  and  the 
worst  inhumanity  of  which  a  nation  can  be  guilty. 
The  old-fashioned  idea  that  children  must  go 
hungry  or  be  fed  so  as  to  grow  up  rickety,  be- 

355 


AND— AFTER  ? 

cause  their  parents  (being  'rotters'  already)  must 
not  be  rotted  further,  is  a  doctrine  devoid  both  of 
common  sense  and  compassion.  A  nation  either 
has  a  will  toward  a  future,  or  it  has  none.  If  it 
has  none,  for  what  are  we  fighting  this  most  bloody 
war?  What  does  our  honour  matter,  or  our  in- 
dependence either?  But  the  future  of  a  nation 
is  its  children.  As  they  grow  up,  healthy,  clean, 
hopeful,  efficient,  so  will  our  future  be.  As  they 
grow  up — half-fed,  dirty,  don't  care,  and  ignorant, 
so  will  Britain !  If  to  look  after  the  children 
makes  worse  paupers  of  the  parents,  well — let  it ! 
Have  some  courage.  Do  not  be  hypnotised  by  a 
word,  and,  grasping  the  shadow,  lose  the  sub- 
stance. Give  the  children  blood  in  their  little 
bodies  and  hope  in  their  little  brains.  Any  de- 
cent parent  will  be  the  better  for  that;  the  inde- 
cent parent  is  a  loss  already,  and  must  be  cut. 
Working-class  mothers  who  neglect  to  feed  their 
children  better  than  themselves  are  rare  ex- 
ceptions, nor  will  a  sounder  system  of  State-help 
seriously  alter  the  deepest  instinct  of  human 
nature.  The  heroism  of  British  soldiers  in  the 
trenches  is  no  greater  than  the  lifelong  heroism 
of  British  mothers  in  the  slums,  struggling  against 
want.  This  is  a  matter  that  should  not  be  left  to 
the  discretion  of  local  bodies.  Once  the  principle 
has  been  admitted — and  who  can  honestly  deny 

356 


HEALTH,  HUMANITY,  AND  PROCEDURE 

that  it  has? — the  rest  should  be  simply  a  question 
of  fact  medically  certified,  not  here  and  there,  but 
all  over  the  country.  Either  it  is  justice  and  wis- 
dom to  feed  the  children,  or  it  is  not,  and  the 
scruples,  however  philosophical,  of  gentlemen  pre- 
pared to  watch  other  people's  children  go  hungry 
should  not  any  longer  be  indulged. 

The  estimated  number  of  school  children  in 
England  and  Wales  being  fed  by  the  State  in 
1911-12  was  230,000  out  of  a  school  population 
of  5,357,567.  The  estimated  number  of  this 
school  population  showing  signs  of  malnutrition  is 
variously  given  at  from  10  to  20  per  cent.  Tak- 
ing it  at  15  per  cent,  or  800,000  children,  we  have 
more  than  half  a  million  school  children  wanting 
meals  and  not  getting  them.  This  is  appalling. 
There  is  no  other  word  for  it.  But  when  the 
children  under  school  age  who  need  food  and  are 
not  getting  it,  are  added  to  this  number,  the  pro- 
portions of  this  national  folly  and  inhumanity 
stagger  the  brain.  It  does  not  yet  seem  to  be 
grasped  that  these  children,  who  are  fighting  not 
only  against  insufficiency  of  proper  food  but 
against  bad  air  and  bad  housing,  grow  up  with  so 
much  per  cent  knocked  off  their  national  value. 
A  stitch  in  time  is  supposed  to  save  nine.  A 
pound  spent  on  the  age  of  growth  brings  back 
many  pounds  from  the  age  of  stability.     To  those 

357 


AND— AFTER? 

few  who  ride  the  doctrine  of  Liberty  to  the  death 
of  national  health  it  may  simply  be  said:  So  long 
as  you  have  no  hope  of  repealing  compulsory 
education,  you  have  no  right  to  let  children  re- 
ceive it  in  an  unfit  condition.  Education  and 
decent  nourishment  are  inseparable;  and  decent 
nourishment  is  as  necessary  in  the  years  that 
come  before  as  in  the  years  of  schooling.  No !  In 
reality  the  principle  is  now  rooted,  and,  like 
other  things,  it's  all  a  question  of  money.  But  a 
country  with  a  capital  of  £16,000,000,000  and  an 
income  of  £2,100,000,000  cannot  really  afford  to 
allow  this  state  of  affairs  to  continue — especially 
after  the  gold-letting  of  this  war.  The  state  our 
national  finances  will  be  in  rnakes  it  all  the  more 
imperative  that  we  should  have  a  well-nourished 
and  efficient  population,  or  we  shall  never  get  out 
of  the  slough. 

During  this  war  our  heroism  has  gibed  at 
liquor.  That  jovial  monster  looms  nearly  as 
large  as  ever.  We  shall  have  a  national  debt 
after  the  war  of  three  or  four  thousand  millions, 
perhaps  more.  And  yet  the  cheapest  thing  that 
could  possibly  be  done,  in  the  long  run,  would 
be  to  increase  it  and  buy  up  the  liquor  trade; 
achieve  that  dream  of  Joseph  Chamberlain  "the 
total  and  absolute  elimination  of  any  idea  of 
private  gain  in  the  retail  sale  of  liquor,"  convert 

358 


HEALTH,  HUMANITY,  AND  PROCEDURE 

drink  into  food  to  the  tune  of  some  eighty  mil- 
lions a  year;  and  vastly  diminish  the  number  of 
children  that  require  State  nourishment  and  the 
number  of  underfed  men  and  women.  In  1911, 
£162,797,229  was  the  drink  bill  of  the  nation;  of 
which  it  is  estimated  that  about  £110,000,000 
was  spent  by  the  working  class.  The  working 
classes  are  no  more  inclined  to  liquor  than  the 
rest  of  the  population,  but  they  have  obviously 
less  to  spare  for  the  indulgence  of  their  inclina- 
tion. With  proper  control  of  the  liquor  traffic 
they  will  perhaps  spend  half  what  they  spend 
now,  extracting  therefrom  just  as  much  enjoy- 
ment, and  most  of  the  other  half  will  go  into  the 
bodies  of  themselves  and  their  children,  in  the 
form  of  food. 

Before  the  war  one-tenth  of  our  people  were 
getting  too  little  food,  two-tenths  more  just  bal- 
anced on  a  knife-edge  of  bare  sufficiency.  And 
the  great  majority  of  this  third  of  our  population 
were  too  closely  or  too  badly  housed  for  health. 

What  is  it  going  to  be — after — unless  our  mea- 
sures in  regard  to  food,  to  housing,  and  to  drink 
are  heroic?  For  heroic  measures  we  shall  need 
a  keener  sense  of  justice,  a  larger  humanity  than 
we  have  ever  had.  Though  the  war  may  con- 
ceivably not  diminish  humane  feeling  in  those 
who  fight,  it  blunts  the  sensibilities  of  those  who 

359 


AND— AFTER? 

do  not  see  its  horrors  at  first-hand.  Tales  of 
others'  sufferings  have  become  the  daily  fodder  of 
the  brain;  narratives  of  death  and  misery  the 
companions  of  every  hour.  Alongside  the  brutali- 
ties and  agonies  of  the  war,  the  injustice  and  cru- 
elties of  normal  civil  life  seem  pale  and  tame. 
Man  has  only  a  certain  capacity  for  feeling;  one 
expects  callousness  now  toward  civil  inhumani- 
ties. But  must  that  callousness  last  after  peace 
has  come  ?    If  so,  we  are  in  a  bad  way. 

What  is  it  that  our  modern  State  is  reaching 
after?  Presumably  health  and  balance.  And 
what  are  these  qualities  built  on,  if  not  on  jus- 
tice? At  the  back  of  all  social  inhumanities  will 
be  found  a  lack  of  reasonable  freedom  and  oppor- 
tunity for  some  people,  and  the  possession  in 
other  people  of  too  much  freedom  and  opportu- 
nity. And  for  the  swift  redress  of  social  cruelties, 
the  thorough  attainment  of  social  justice,  we 
have  at  present  not  only  to  contend  with  human 
nature,  but  with  an  admitted  deficiency  in  our 
legislative  machinery. 

When  the  chief  obstacle  to  laws  is  not  the  cal- 
lousness of  public  opinion,  but  a  mere  block  on 
the  lines  of  procedure,  some  drastic  change  is 
due,  a  new  departure  wanted.  Before  the  war, 
many  measures  of  reform  hung  in  the  wind  year 
after  year,  not  because  there  was  no  public  feel- 

360 


HEALTH,  HUMANITY,  AND  PROCEDURE 

ing  behind  them,  not  even  because  there  were  the 
usual  political  cleavages  concerning  them,  but 
simply  because  time  could  not  be  found  in  which 
to  pass  them.  Of  such  were:  Measures  for  the 
feeding  and  education  of  children;  the  control  of 
drink;  rural  housing;  improvement  of  slum  areas; 
furtherance  of  the  minimum  wage;  reform  of  the 
Poor  Law;  of  the  Divorce  Law;  of  the  disability 
that  attends  the  needy  in  their  access  to  civil 
justice;  of  the  imprisonment  of  poor  persons  for 
debt;  of  the  procedure  in  regard  to  pauper  luna- 
tics; of  the  prison  system;  of  provision  for  the 
blind;  measures  for  the  better  treatment  of 
animals.  All  these  and  others  hung  in  the  wind; 
are  they  to  go  on  hanging  when  the  war  is  over? 
Wanted  before,  they  will  be  wanted  still  more 
badly  then,  because  the  general  conditions  of  life 
will  for  some  years,  perhaps  many  years,  be 
harder,  and  economic  pressure  fosters  rough  and 
unjust  treatment. 

Is  it  too  early  for  a  united  effort,  to  think  out, 
in  readiness  for  peace,  a  scheme  of  parliamentary 
procedure  which  should  afford  time  for  the  serious 
and  uninterrupted  consideration  of  non-party 
measures  and  the  furtherance  of  needed  reforms? 

Party  no  longer  exists,  but  they  who  think  it 
has  gone  for  good  dwell  in  a  fools'  paradise.  As 
sure  as  fate  it  will  spring  up  again,  because  it  is 

361 


AND— AFTER? 

rooted  in  temperamental  difference.  But  must  it 
come  back  with  all  its  old  cat-and-dog  propensi- 
ties and  waste  of  national  time?  It  will,  unless 
some  method  be  devised  that  will  remove  some 
of  party's  unhandsome  opportunities,  and  save  it 
from  itself.  Politicians  alone  know  the  difficul- 
ties, many  and  great,  in  the  way 'of  a  better  pro- 
cedure. Surely,  while  faction  is  in  abeyance, 
Parliament  will  set  its  wits  to  overcoming  those 
difficulties,  so  that  when  the  war  ends  we  may 
not  witness  again  the  tedious  and  distressful 
blocking  of  so  many  needed  measures,  that  pre- 
vailed aforetime.  Party  was  made  for  the  coun- 
try, not  the  country  for  party;  and  what  was 
tolerated  with  Job-like  patience  before  this  vast 
upheaval  is  not  by  any  means  likely  to  be  toler- 
ated after.  Needs  will  be  more  insistent;  the 
sense  of  reality  much  greater;  the  aspiration 
toward  national  health  a  live  thing,  because  it 
will  be  so  desperately  necessary. 

Reform  of  parliamentary  procedure  is  obviously 
the  prime  precedent  for  national  reform.  Shall 
not  then  the  question  be  even  now  given  all  the 
attention  that  can  be  spared  to  it  ?  What  better 
moment — when  men  of  all  parties  are  rilled  with 
the  one  great  thought — our  countiy ! 


362 


A  LAST  WORD 


A  LAST  WORD 

One  more  word  before  these  vapourings  cease. 
The  national  task  in  this  war  is  still  mighty 
enough  to  absorb  all  action,  but  not  quite  all 
thought,  for  it  is  no  spasmodic  effort,  meaning 
nothing  to  the  future.  To  carry  the  spirit  of  to- 
day into  a  long  to-morrow,  making  of  our  patriot- 
ism not  a  mere  torrent  soon  spent  and  leaving  an 
arid  plain,  but  a  life-giving,  even-flowing  river — 
for  that  one  must  not  lose  the  sense  of  continuity, 
one  must  think  ahead.  More!  One  must  re- 
solve— resolve  that  this  new  unity  shall  stand 
not  only  the  strain  of  war,  but  the  greater  strain 
of  the  coming  peace.  After — will  come  the  test. 
Having  guaranteed  our  country  for  the  moment 
from  destructive  powers  without,  shall  we  at 
once  redeliver  it  to  the  destructive  powers  within ; 
go  back  to  strife  over  Ireland,  the  suffrage,  the 
Welsh  Church,  and  the  Second  Chamber?  Or, 
preserving  our  new-found  unity,  settle  generously 
and  in  a  large  spirit  those  distressful  matters,  and 
pass  on  to  the  real  work — to  a  wider  and  freer 
view  of  empire,  to  the  right  training  of  the  na- 
tion, the  right  feeding  of  the  nation,  to  securing 
for  each  man,  woman,  and  child  a  solid  founda- 

363 


AND— AFTER? 

tion  of  health  and  hope;  to  the  restoration  of  the 
land,  and  of  our  food  supply;  to  clearance  of 
mutual  suspicions  and  the  stablishing  of  a  new 
trustfulness  between  labour  and  capital;  to  the 
banishment  of  inhumanity,  the  freeing  of  the  eyes 
of  Justice;  and  interment  of  the  privilege  of  class? 
Shall  we  go  back  to  rolling  in  the  troughs  of  a 
dirty  sea;  or  set  new  sail  and  steer  out  with  a 
true  faith  in  our  destiny  as  the  ship  of  freedom 
and  justice? 

"When  the  devil  was  sick,  the  devil  a  saint  would  be, 
But  when  the  devil  got  well,  the  devil  a  saint  was  he !" 

Is  that  to  be  our  case?  Let  us  not  underrate 
the  danger.  At  this  moment,  and  until  the  war 
is  over,  we  are  full  of  patriotism  and  good-will. 
We  have  to  be.  There's  the  trouble.  Once  peace 
comes,  and  the  unifying  force  of  our  common  peril 
is  over — what  then  ?  Is  the  old  raw  party  spirit 
to  ramp  among  us  again?  If  a  man  would  dis- 
cover what  danger  there  is  of  a  return  to  every 
kind  of  disunity,  let  him  take  a  definite  national 
question  and  see  how  much  of  his  private  interest 
or  conviction  he  is  prepared  to  abate  for  the  sake 
of  the  public  good.  Mighty  little!  Are  we  to 
dissolve  again  into  those  "rascally  Radicals"  and 
those  "infernal  Tories";  into  "grinders  of  the 
poor"  and  "discontented  devils":  into  "brutal 
men"  and  "hysterical  females,"  with  all  the  other 

364 


A  LAST  WORD 

warring  tribes  of  the  Armageddon  of  Peace  ?  Are 
we  to  lose  utterly  the  inspiring  vision  of  our 
country  in  the  squabbles  of  domestic  life? 
Some  of  that  intense  vision  must  go,  alas!  But 
surely  not  all.  And  yet  all  will  go  unless  we 
keep  in  mind  the  thought  that  this  war  is  not  an 
end  but  the  means  to  an  end  which  none  of  us 
will  see,  but  all  of  us  can  further  in  time  of 
peace  as  well  as  in  time  of  war;  an  end  for  whose 
attainment  the  blood  and  treasure  now  spilled  is 
but  as  a  preliminary. 

It  will  be  heart-breaking  if  from  this  stupen- 
dous cataclysm  no  lasting  good  to  the  world  and 
to  Britain  can  be  brought  forth.  Its  horror,  even 
now,  few  realise  who  are  not  at  the  front.  One 
who  was  many  months  on  ambulance  duty  in  the 
French  lines  wrote  these  words: 

"They  talk  of  the  war !  Let  them  come  close  in !  Let 
them  see  lying  around  emaciated  heads  with  no  bodies 
within  a  couple  of  hundred  yards ;  let  them  see  the  bloody 
confusion  of  heads  and  entrails  and  limbs  which  is  show- 
ered around  when  a  trench  is  mined;  let  them  see  the 
heads  with  ears  and  noses  bitten  off  as  if  by  mad  dogs; 
let  them  see  the  men  driven  insane  by  the  sights  and 
sounds  of  the  battle-field,  who  turn  and  rend  their  com- 
rades and  have  to  be  shot  down  by  them;  let  them  come 
where  hundreds  of  wounded  men  are  lying  on  contested 
ground  screaming  the  whole  night  through  (and  not  one 
in  a  million  has  ever  heard  a  man  scream !)  and  then  talk 
of  the  war!" 

365 


AND— AFTER? 

If  from  this  horror,  fought  through  and  endured, 
as  we  believe,  for  the  future  of  our  land  and  the 
future  of  mankind,  there  is  to  come  no  blessing, 
no  advance  to  freedom  and  health  and  justice 
— what  then!  Nothing  will  be  easier  than  to 
take  up  again  the  peace  life  of  Britain  as  it 
was,  and  worse  than  it  was,  because  coarsened 
by  the  passions  of  war  and  imbittered  by  the 
strain  of  a  greater  economic  stress.  Nothing  will 
be  easier  than  to  give  rein  to  the  instincts  of 
greed,  pugnacity,  and  rancour,  now  hard  held  in 
by  sentiment  and  the  common  peril;  to  step  back 
and  walk  blindly  in  a  country  where  all  is  fac- 
tion; where  class  shuns  class,  and  men  and  women 
are  bitterly  opposed;  where  the  youth  of  the  na- 
tion is  all  the  time  running  to  seed;  where  children 
go  hungiy  and  millions  throughout  the  land  are 
miserably  housed  and  fed;  where  the  access  to 
justice  is  often  still  beyond  the  reach  of  the  poor; 
where  helplessness  is  not  yet  a  guarantee  against 
ill-usage.  Once  the  war  effort  is  over,  nothing 
will  be  easier  than — from  a  resolved  and  united 
nation — to  become  a  crowd  pressing  this  way  and 
that,  without  view  and  without  vision,  seeking 
purse  and  place  or,  at  the  best,  fulfilment  of  small, 
factious  policies. 

No  one  can  tell  yet  what  will  be  the  world 
sequel  of  this  war — whether  it  will  bring  a  long 

366 


A  LAST  WORD 

peace  or  other  wars;  the  enlargement  of  democ- 
racy or  the  hardening  of  autocratic  rule;  the 
United  States  of  Europe  or  a  congery  of  dis- 
trustful Powers  working  for  another  "Day." 
Only  one  thing  we  know,  that  in  our  charge  will 
be  our  own  national  life,  to  make  or  to  mar;  to 
prepare  against  whatever  fortune  the  outer  world 
shall  brew,  to  prepare  against  the  subtle  march 
of  inward  dissolution.  Our  future  does  not  lie 
on  the  knees  of  the  gods;  it  lies  in  our  own  hands, 
and  hearts,  and  brains,  and  the  use  that  we  shall 
make  of  them. 

Swift  is  the  descent  to  hell,  and  no  wings  fly 
so  fast  thither  as  the  wings  of  material  success. 
Shall  we  go  that  way  ?  Or  shall  we,  having  fixed 
our  eyes  on  a  goal  far  beyond  the  finish  of  this 
war,  quietly,  resolutely,  in  our  conduct  to  the 
outer  world  and  in  our  national  life,  begin  at  once 
transmuting  into  deeds  those  words:  Freedom, 
Health,  Justice,  for  all  ? 

As  a  man  thinks  and  dreams,  so  does  he  act. 
It  is  time  to  think  and  dream  a  little  of  the  future, 
while  the  spirit  of  unity  is  on  us,  the  vision  of  our 
country  with  us;  so  that,  when  we  see  again  the 
face  of  Peace  we  may  continue  to  act  in  unity, 
having  in  our  hearts  the  good  of  our  great  land, 
and  in  our  eyes  the  vision  of  her,  growing  ever  to 
truer  greatness  and  beauty. 

367 


THE  ISLANDS  OF  THE  BLESSED 


THE  ISLANDS  OF  THE  BLESSED 

(Read  at  a  conference  on  the  National  Life  of  the  Allied 
Countries,  Stratford-on-Avon,  August,  1916) 

I  suppose  there  are  Britons  who  have  never 
seen  the  sea;  thousands,  perhaps — unfortunate. 
But  is  there  a  Briton  who  has  not  in  some  sort 
the  feeling  that  he  is  a  member  of  a  great  ship's 
crew?  Is  there  one  who  never  rejoices  that  his 
Land  sails  in  space,  unboarded,  untouched  by 
other  lands?  It  must  be  strange  to  be  native 
of  a  country  where,  strolling  forth,  one  may  pass 
into  the  fields  or  woods  of  another  race.  In  all 
that  we  are,  have  been,  and  shall  be,  the  sea  comes 
first — the  sea,  sighing  up  quiet  beaches,  thun- 
dering off  headlands,  the  sea  blue  and  smiling 
under  our  white  cliffs,  or  lashing  the  long  sands, 
the  sea  out  beyond  foreshore  and  green  fields,  or 
rolling  in  on  wind-blown  rocks  and  wastes.  The 
sea  with  its  smile,  and  its  frown,  and  its  rest- 
less music;  the  grim,  loyal,  protecting  sea — our 
mother  and  our  comrade,  our  mysterious  friend ! 

The  ancients  dreamed  of  'the  islands  of  the 
blessed ' ;  we  of  these  green  and  misty  isles  almost, 
I  think,  believe  that  we  inhabit  them. 

A  strange  and  abiding  sense  is  love  of  Country ! 
Though  reason  may  revolt,  and  life  here  be  hard, 

371 


THE  ISLANDS  OF  THE  BLESSED 

ugly,  thankless,  though  one  may  even  say,  'I 
care  no  more  for  my  own  countrymen  than  for 
those  of  other  lands;  I  am  a  citizen  of  the  world !' 
No  use!  A  stealing  love  has  us  fast  bound;  a 
web  of  who  knows  what  memories  of  misty  fields, 
and  scents  of  clover  and  turned  earth;  of  summer 
evenings,  when  sounds  are  far  and  clear;  of  long 
streets,  half-lighted,  and  town  sights,  not  beauti- 
ful but  homely;  of  the  skies  we  were  born  be- 
neath, and  the  roads  we  have  trodden  all  our 
lives.  What  memories,  too,  of  names  and  tales, 
small  visions  all  upside  down  perhaps,  yet  true 
and  warm  to  us  because  we  listened  and  saw 
when  we  were  no  older  than  foals  at  their  dams' 
heels.  It  is  not  our  actual  Country,  but  its  halo, 
that  we  love — the  halo  each  one  of  us  has  made 
for  it.  There  are  evenings  under  the  moon,  dewy 
mornings,  late  afternoons,  when  over  field  and 
wood,  over  moor  or  park  or  town,  unearthliness 
hovers;  so,  over  our  native  land  hovers  a  glamour 
that  burns  brighter  when  we  are  absent,  and  flames 
up  in  glory  above  her  when  we  see  her  driven  or 
hard  pressed.  No  man  yet  knows  the  depths  of 
our  love  for  these  islands  of  the  blessed.  May  no 
man  ever  know  it ! 

And  to  each  of  us  there  will  be  some  ingle- 
nook  where  the  spirit  of  our  country  most  in- 
habits, where  the  fire  of  hearth  and  home  glows 

372 


THE  ISLANDS  OF  THE  BLESSED 

best,  and  draws  us  with  its  warmth  from  wander- 
ings bodily  or  spiritual.  To  know  that  in  these 
islands  no  native-born  but  has  a  quiet  shrine,  be 
it  lovely,  or  devoid  of  earthly  beauty,  where  he 
or  she  in  fancy  worships  the  whole  land,  gives 
reality  to  the  word  Patriotism. 

This  love  of  country  is  so  deep  and  sacred  that 
we  cannot  utter  it;  let  us  not  forget  that  it  is  as 
deep  and  sacred  to  the  natives  of  other  lands ! 

Looking  back  into  the  dark  of  history,  how 
quaint  is  our  origin — offspring  of  invading  rob- 
bers, wave  after  wave,  for  some  two  thousand 
years  before  the  Norman  Conquest !  If  these  are 
not  in  truth  the  blessed  islands  that  the  ancients 
dreamed  of,  they  seem  to  have  been  sufficiently 
attractive.  Who  our  Neolithic  forerunners  were, 
whence  they  came,  or  whether  they  were  here 
before  our  isles  cut  loose  from  the  mainland  and 
set  out  on  an  endless  voyage,  we  shall  never,  I 
suppose,  know.  A  strain  of  their  blood,  more 
than  we  think  perhaps,  must  still  be  alive  within 
us;  the  rest  of  it  is  freebooting  fluid — Celts  and 
Romans,  Anglo-Saxons,  Danes,  Normans,  all 
robbers;  blent  at  last— and  in  Ireland  not  yet 
quite  blent— to  the  observance  of  honour  among 
thieves. 

Ever  since  the  sea  brought  us  here — all  but  the 
Neolithic  few — in  the  long-ships  of  the  past,  what 

373 


THE  ISLANDS  OF  THE  BLESSED 

a  slow,  ceaseless  fusing  has  gone  to  the  making  of 
the  modern  Briton — that  most  singular  among 
men!  I  hold  the  theory — how  far  scientifically 
tenable  I  know  not — that  the  continued  vitality 
of  a  race  depends  on  two  main  conditions:  The 
presence  of  many  strains  of  blood  not  too  vio- 
lently differing  one  from  the  other,  and  the  ab- 
sence of  too  much  sun.  I  hold  that  nations  may 
become  too  inbred;  or  may  have  the  sap  dried 
out  of  them  by  heat.  In  Britain  we  cannot  yet 
have  reached  the  point  of  perfect  fusion — are  not 
in  danger  for  a  long  time  of  becoming  too  inbred. 
Nor  can  the  sun  be  called  a  desperate  peril.  We 
are ' game/  as  they  say,  for  centuries  yet;  unless — ! 
For  our  besetting  danger  is  another. 

How  many  of  us  realise  that  far  beyond  all 
other  nations  we  are  town  dwellers,  subject  to 
town  blight  ?  That  is  a  new,  an  insidious,  malady, 
whose  virulence  we  have  hardly  yet  appreciated 
or  had  time  to  study.  Can  it  be  arrested  by 
homceopathy — or  must  sweeping  allopathic  rem- 
edies be  applied?  Will  town  blight  be  cured  by 
better  town  conditions,  and  our  gradual  adapta- 
tion— or  by  going  back  to  the  land?  By  both. 
But,  if  not  by  both  within  the  next  half-century, 
then — I  fear — by  neither.  Town  blight  has  had 
as  yet  but  two  full  generations  to  lay  its  grip  on 
us.    We  have  time  for  its  defeat  if  we  have  cour- 

374 


THE  ISLANDS  OF  THE  BLESSED 

age  and  sense.  But  it  is  an  enemy  more  deadly 
than  the  Germans;  not  so  easy  to  see  and  to 
fight  against ! 

When  children  first  discover  gooseberries  or 
other  kindly  fruits  of  the  earth,  they  eat  too 
quickly  and  too  much.  We  were  the  first  people 
to  discover  the  means  to  ' happiness'  known  as 
modern  industrialism.  With  huge  appetite  we 
set  upon  it,  and  are  caught  by  surfeit.  I  have 
heard  this  view  of  our  case  seriously  countered 
— the  Cockney  and  the  northern  townsman  are 
thought  to  be  our  most  vital  types.  Verily  they 
have  a  pretty  courage;  but  to  such  as  are  light- 
hearted  on  this  matter  I  would  say:  'Go,  in  sum- 
mer, to  some  seaside  place  where  humble  towns- 
folk have  come  to  make  holiday,  as  healthy  and 
little  pallid  as  they  ever  are,  and — watch.  Then 
wing  off  to  some  remote  fishing  village,  or  coun- 
tryside where  such  peasants  as  are  left  are  not 
too  badly  off,  and — watch.  Then  summon  your 
candour,  and  tell  in  which  of  your  two  fields  of 
observation  you  have  seen  more  vigour  of  limb, 
beauty  of  face,  or  at  all  events  more  freedom  from 
petty  distortions  and  a  look  of  dwindling.' 

I  cannot  explain  exactly  what  I  mean  by  town 
blight.  It  is  not  mere  pallor  or  weakliness,  but 
rather  a  loss  of  balance — a  tendency  to  jut  here 
and  be  squashed  in  there;   an  over-narrowness 

375 


THE  ISLANDS  OF  THE  BLESSED 

of  head;  an  over-development  of  this  feature  at 
the  expense  of  that;  with  a  look  of  living  too 
fast,  of  giving  out  more  than  is  taken  in.  The 
modifications  of  the  Briton  through  town  life  are 
countless,  and  all  the  time  subtly  going  on.  I  do 
not  deny  that  there  is  much  good,  too,  in  the 
transformation:  the  quickening  of  a  temperament 
by  no  means  quick;  a  widening  of  sympathies  in 
a  character  not  too  sympathetic;  the  deepening 
of  humaneness  and  the  love  of  justice  in  a  nature 
with  an  old  Adam  in  it  of  brutality.  A  frank 
humanitarian  and  humanist,  like  myself,  dwells 
cheerfully  on  that,  for  it  does  seem,  while  other 
changes  in  human  life  are  always  arguable — such 
as  the  increase  of  efficiency  purchased  by  loss  of 
breadth  and  kindliness;  economic  gain  by  loss  of 
health  and  balance;  greater  will-power  by  loss 
of  understanding  and  tolerance — that  the  increase 
of  humane  instinct,  with  which  is  bound  up  the 
love  of  justice,  is  alone  sheer  gain.  Some,  I  know, 
think  it  bought  at  the  expense  of  what  is  called 
1  virility.'  To  those  I  recommend  a  steady  glimpse 
at  the  modern  British  sailor.  Of  late  years  I  have 
been  reading  accounts  of  Arctic  and  Antarctic 
exploration.  There  is  no  better  study  for  those 
who  doubt  whether  men  can  be  brave  and  hard 
and  at  the  same  time  chivalrous  and  gentle. 
One  returns  from  mental  travel  with  those  heroes 

376 


THE  ISLANDS  OF  THE  BLESSED 

convinced  that  true  humanity  and  gentleness  and 
justice  actually  depend  on  bravery  and  stoicism. 
Picked  men,  you  say!  Well,  go  to  the  British 
Fleet,  or  the  British  Army — in  a  word,  to  the 
British  male  population  of  robust  age — and  you 
will  come  back,  I  believe,  with  the  same  general 
conviction — that  where  the  truest  bravery  is  there 
also  is  humaneness — that  these  qualities  grow 
naturally  twined  together.  All  evidence  from  the 
war  proves  that  the  Briton  is  as  hard  a  fighter, 
and  far  better  behaved,  than  he  ever  was.  Better 
behaviour  under  war  conditions  means  nothing 
but  increase  in  each  individual  fighter,  of  just 
and  humane  instinct,  and  that  sense  of  personal 
responsibility  which  is  the  other  main  advantage 
coming  to  us  from  town  life.  In  towns  a  man 
finds  his  level,  acquires  the  corporate  sense,  sees 
himself  as  part  of  the  civic  whole,  learns  that  his 
own  ills  are  shared  by  too  many  to  bear  thinking 
of  save  with  a  touch  of  humour  and  contempt. 
The  British  sailor  whose  shattered  arm  was  be- 
ing dressed  in  the  battle  of  Jutland  well  summed 
up  what  I  mean:  "To  hell  with  my  arm,  doctor; 
I  want  to  get  up  there  again  and  give  the  boys  a 
hand.!"  That  would  seem  very  much  the  spirit 
of  the  modern  town-bred  British. 

Now,  is  there  anything  which  in  some  sort  dif- 
ferentiates this  Britain  of  ours  from  other  lands? 

377 


THE  ISLANDS  OF  THE  BLESSED 

A  country  is  such  a  huge  conglomeration  of  types 
and  qualities;  such  a  seething  mass  of  energies! 
It  seems  sometimes  as  impossible  to  thread  one's 
way  to  the  heart  of  that  maze  as  to  fix  the  pat- 
tern of  a  thousand  gnats  dancing  in  a  sunlit 
lane!  One  turns  eyes  here,  there,  follows  this 
movement  and  that,  thinks  one  has  the  clue,  falls 
back  gaping.  Is  there  any  essence  which  sets 
the  British  soul  apart  as  an  oak  is  set  apart,  from 
beech  or  lime  tree?  Can  there,  indeed,  be  any 
single  essence  in  a  land  where  Iberian  and  Celt, 
Saxon  and  Norseman,  still  quarrel  in  the  blood? 
I  think  there  is,  and  will  hazard  an  attempt  to 
throw  on  the  screen  some  faint  shadow  of  the 
elusive  thing. 

Take  certain  salient  British  characteristics: 
Our  peculiar  national  under-emphasis  and  stolid- 
ity; our  want  of  imagination;  that  desire  to  have 
things  both  ways — which  is  generally  called  our 
'hypocrisy';  our  turn  of  ironic  humour;  our  bull- 
dog grip;  our  lack  of  joie  de  vivre;  our  snobbish- 
ness— dying,  but  dying  very  hard;  our  perpetual 
desire  for  the  moral  in  action  or  art;  our  regard 
for  'good  form';  our  slow  dumb  idealism,  hand 
in  hand  with  our  profound  distrust  of  ideas;  our 
propensity  for  grumbling  under  prosperity,  and 
our  cheeriness  under  hardship;  our  passion  for 
games,  and  our  creed  of  'playing  the  game';  our 
love  of  individual  liberty — even  our  perversity 

378 


THE  ISLANDS  OF  THE  BLESSED 

and  crankiness.  .  .  .  Take  them  all,  and  con- 
sider whether  there  is  not  some  fundamental  un- 
derlying instinct. 

I  believe  that  the  mainspring  of  the  British 
soul,  concealed  by  a  layer  of  mental  laziness  from 
superficial  scrutiny  is  nothing  but  an  inveterate 
instinct  for  competition.  The  Briton  is  the  most 
competitive  creature  on  the  face  of  the  earth — 
save  possibly  the  American  of  British  descent. 
True — we  would,  as  they  phrase  it  on  the  turf, 
make  a  race  with  a  donkey,  for  our  climate  has 
certainly  sluggarded  the  circulation  of  our  blood. 
None  the  less,  we  have  a  perpetual  secret  itch  for 
competition,  so  bone  deep  that  most  of  us  do  not 
even  know  of  it.  All  through  our  lives  we  are 
playing  a  match.  When  the  Briton  is  not  secretly 
pitting  himself  against  somebody  or  something, 
he  can  hardly  be  said  to  be  alive.  I  do  not  think, 
speaking  racially,  that  he  cares  so  much  for 
what  he  gets  by  the  game  as  for  the  game  itself 
and  victory  in  it.  He  sets  little  store  by  the  per- 
fection of  his  handiwork  so  long  as  it  beats  the 
handiwork  of  others;  or — and  this  is  the  saving 
grace — so  long  as  in  the  accomplishment  he  has 
defeated  the  slackness  or  cowardice  in  his  own 
nature — won  the  match  within  himself. 

Let  us  turn  them  over  one  by  one,  those  salient 
British  characteristics : 

Stolidity!  Under-emphasis !   It  is  surely  noth- 

379 


THE  ISLANDS  OF  THE  BLESSED 

ing  but  contempt  of  fuss;  and  what  is  fuss  but 
allowing  too  much  importance  to  the  task  or 
person  you  are  up  against  ?  The  instinct  of  com- 
petition forbids  that  in  the  Briton;  Lhe  is  so  com- 
petitive that  he  does  not  deign  to  let  people  see 
that  he  is  stretching  himself. 

Want  of  imagination !  That  is  partly  the  men- 
tal laziness,  no  doubt,  engendered  by  our  thick 
climate;  but  much  of  it,  I  think,  is  only  the  sub- 
conscious refusal  by  our  competitive  natures  to 
see  too  quickly  and  clearly  what  we  have  before 
us,  lest  we  be  discouraged.  A  great  help — to 
have  muddled  through  most  of  the  battle  before 
you  are  aware  of  the  size  and  length  of  it ! 

Our  rather  grim  turn  of  humour!  Is  it  not 
generally  a  jest  at  the  expense  of  a  fate  which 
thought  it  could  set  us  down? 

Our  hypocrisy !  One  would  not  admit  a  phys- 
ical defeat,  but  clench  the  teeth  and  have  at  it 
again;  then,  how  admit  moral  defeat?  Impossi- 
ble! Face  must  be  saved — instinctively  again, 
unconsciously — for  the  last  thing  we  plead  guilty 
to  is  our  ' hypocrisy.' 

The  bulldog  grip — speaks  for  itself. 

Our  lack  of  joie  de  vivre!  We  are  playing  a 
match — we  have  no  chance  or  time  to  relax,  to 
lie  on  our  backs  and  let  the  sunlight  warm  our 
faces.    We  have  not  time  to  give  ourselves  up  to 

380 


THE  ISLANDS  OF  THE  BLESSED 

life;  there  is  so  much  to  beat — we  are  playing  a 
match. 

Our  veneration  for  rank  of  every  kind !  Snob- 
bishness !  This  is  surely  nothing  but  our  recog- 
nition of  the  value  of  attainment;  acknowledg- 
ment of  victories  won,  if  not  in  the  present,  in 
the  past;  tacit  confession  that  we,  too,  want  to 
win  such  victories. 

Our  craving  for  a  moral !  Well,  what  is  a 
moral,  if  not  the  triumph  of  what  we  call  'good7 
over  what  we  call  '  evil '  ?  We  crave  that  triumph 
• — not  only  in  action,  but  also,  I  fear,  in  art.  Art- 
must  not  merely  excite  within  us  impersonal  emo- 
tion; it  must  be  useful  to  us  in  our  match  with 
life —    A  pity ! 

Our  worship  of  'good  form'  is  partly  dread 
of  that  ridicule  which  would  be  a  proof  of  our 
having  fallen  short,  and  partly  recognition  by  a 
people  who  have  long  lived  an  exceptionally  stable 
social  life,  that  this  competitive  instinct  of  ours, 
unchecked  by  rules,  becomes  a  nuisance  to  our- 
selves and  others.  In  the  same  way,  our  'play- 
ing the  game'  is  but  the  necessary  check  on  our 
passion  for  a  match. 

Our  inveterate  dumb  idealism  is  of  course  a 
primary  constituent  element  in  the  fighting  na- 
ture; and  our  distrust  of  ideas  a  natural  lazy 
dread  of  being  pushed  on  too  fast  by  that  idealism. 

381 


THE  ISLANDS  OF  THE  BLESSED 

Our  grumbling  habits,  when  there  is  little  or 
nothing  to  grumble  at,  show,  I  think,  that  in 
slackness  and  prosperity  we  are  really  out  of  our 
element;  while  our  ironic  cheerfulness  under 
hardship — the  cry  '  Are  we  down-hearted  ?  No-o ! ' 
proves  that  times  of  stress  suit  our  competitive 
temperament. 

Our  love  of  individual  liberty!  A  man,  the 
joy  of  whose  life  is  winning  an  event  over  him- 
self or  others,  naturally  desires  the  utmost  lati- 
tude for  these  perpetual  contests.  And  so,  the 
Briton  becomes  'a  crank'  more  often  than  mem- 
bers of  any  other  race. 

One  should  never  drive  theory  too  far,  but  I 
seriously  believe  that  the  foundation  of  the 
Briton's  soul  is  this  dumb  and  utter  refusal  to 
admit  that  he  ever  can  be  beaten,  either  by  him- 
self or  any  other.  He  is  concerned  to  win,  rather 
than  to  understand  or  to  enjoy.  I  do  not  know 
whether  this  is  admirable,  but  I  am  pretty  sure 
that  it  is  true.  And  behind  and  beyond  all  the 
better  reasons  for  pursuing  this  war  to  a  victori- 
ous end,  there  is  always  the  inarticulate,  intense, 
instinctive  feeling,  that  we  must  win  the  match, 
since  to  fail  would  mean  not  only  defeat  by  the 
Germans,  but  the  defeat  within  us  of  our  will 
and  of  our  own  nature. 

If  I  am  right  as  to  this  essence  of  the  British 

382 


THE  ISLANDS  OF  THE  BLESSED 

soul,  what  does  it  signify  to  the  world  of  our 
friends  and  enemies? 

It  means,  of  course,  a  rock  on  which  our  friends 
may  build — it  assures  the  fulfilment  of  all  pledges, 
and  endurance  till  the  day  of  victory;  but  it 
carries  with  it  a  certain  element  of  danger.  Vice 
treads  on  the  heels  of  Virtue  in  the  competitive 
soul.  How  far  may  our  nature  become  a  peril, 
not  only  to  ourselves,  but  to  our  Allies  and  the 
whole  world  ? 

Underneath  all  our  resolution  not  to  fall  short 
of  such  measure  of  victory  as  shall  free  the  in- 
vaded lands,  and  prove  to  all  that  the  over-riding 
of  a  little  harmless  neutral  country  has  not  paid; 
underneath  this  absolute  resolve,  which  of  us 
does  not  long  for  a  real  peace,  an  end  of  a  world 
that  is  like  a  powder  magazine  which  malevolent 
or  foolish  hands  can  fire  at  any  moment?  The 
difficulties  that  He  between  us  and  such  a  peace 
are  very  great;  far  be  it  from  me  to  minimise 
them,  or  blink  the  seeming  impasse  of  the  situ- 
ation ahead.  When  the  end  draws  near,  in  eveiy 
warring  land  the  great  dumb  mass-of-the-people's 
only  thought  will  be:  'For  God's  sake,  have  done 
with  it,  and  let  us  get  back  to  life !'  But,  jutting 
out  of  this  mass,  in  each  country,  and  especially 
in  our  own,  there  will  be,  on  the  one  hand,  idealists 
and  dreamers,  a  little  band,  seeing  a  vision  too 

383 


THE  ISLANDS  OF  THE  BLESSED 

visionary,  telling  of  it  to  the  wind;  on  the  other, 
a  far  larger,  louder  band  of  men  of  affairs,  judging 
of  matters  with  the  immediate  eye,  for  immediate 
profit,  or,  as  they  will  rather  phrase  it,  for  per- 
manent profit,  under  the  waving  flags  of  patriot- 
ism; of  men  talking  of  a  lasting  peace  and  genu- 
inely wishing  for  it — so  long  as  it  does  not  mean 
foregoing  anything,  so  long  as  they  may  let  go 
no  advantage  so  dearly  bought.  Already  the 
cry  on  both  sides  is  for  a  commercial  war  start- 
ing from  the  final  battle.  All  that  is  stupendously 
natural!  But  in  this  medley  of  demand,  how, 
will  statesmen  steer?  Will  they,  who  have  to 
remake  the  world,  have  a  large  vision,  and  see 
that,  vital  before  all  else,  is  the  seizing  of  a  chance 
— that  has  never  come  before  and  may  never 
come  again — to  establish  and  set  up  a  Court  of 
Nations,  backed  this  time  by  real  force?  Will 
they  grasp  the  wisdom  implicit  in  the  feeling  of 
the  great  dumb  multitudes:  'For  God's  sake  have 
done  with  it,  and  let  us  live!1 

We  have  not  yet  got  to  the  moment  on  which 
the  whole  future  will  hang.  When  we  do,  I  fancy 
that  this  competitive  soul  of  ours  may  want  too 
much  to  have  things  both  ways.  Whatever  the 
terms  of  the  peace  that  comes,  that  peace  will 
not  last  without  a  League  of  Nations  to  guarantee 
it;    and  such  a  League  we  cannot  have  unless 

384 


THE  ISLANDS  OF  THE  BLESSED 

impartiality  be  its  backbone;  unless  we  mean 
that  it  shall  judge  justly,  and  enforce  judgment 
without  fear  or  favour;  unless  we  are  willing  to 
accept  its  judgments  in  all  matters,  and  not 
merely  when  it  suits  us.  A  man  does  not  guar- 
antee the  health  of  his  body  just  by  holding  his 
neighbour  down;  and  the  true  path  to  security 
and  a  great  future  lies  in  the  efforts  we  make  to 
improve  ourselves,  rather  than  in  those  we  make 
to  injure  others.  The  freedom  and  fair  oppor- 
tunity which  are  vital  to  a  lasting  peace  need  not 
bar  us  from  national  preparedness,  from  wise 
efforts  to  save  ourselves  and  our  Allies  from  un- 
fair commercial  competition,  need  not  prevent  us 
from  assuring  our  safety  and  improving  our  cor- 
porate life.  But  they  do  mean  that  we  must  keep 
free  of  a  militarist  and  tyrannical  spirit.  How 
far  will  our  competitive  British  soul,  when  peace 
comes,  be  proof  against  that  virus?  Are  we,  in 
the  winning  of  military  victory,  going  quietly  to 
accept  moral  defeat,  letting  our  ideals  turn  turtle 
and  float  with  their  keels  to  the  stars  ?  I  wonder. 
This  League  for  Peace  we  talk  of — that  even 
statesmen  talk  of — will  not  be  born  of  violent 
minds,  but  out  of  level  and  long-headedness,  and 
the  desire  to  benefit  not  only  our  own  country, 
but  the  world.  It  is  an  undertaking  fraught  with 
the  most  poignant  difficulty.    If  you  imagine  it 

385  * 


THE   ISLANDS   OP  THE   BLESSED 

fledged  from  birth,  with  wings  full  grown — if  you 
imagine  a  world  disarmed,  immediately  respon- 
sive to  law — it  is  but  an  Utopian  dream.  The 
world  will  assuredly  remain  armed;  at  one  stride 
one  cannot  step  from  hell  to  heaven.  But  armed- 
ness  need  not  prevent  the  nations  from  estab- 
lishing procedure  for  the  delay  of  warlike  action — 
a  tribunal  to  which  all  disputes  must  be  referred; 
need  not  prevent  them  from  pledging  themselves 
to  forcible  support  of  its  decisions,  from  declar- 
ing commerce  sacrosanct  between  members  of  the 
League,  and  punishing  by  blockade  and  ostracism 
any  nation  that  betrays  its  membership,  or  flouts 
a  decision,  so  that  the  sanctity  of  a  nation's  com- 
merce may  in  future  depend  on  that  nation's 
loyalty  to  other  nations;  nor  need  it  prevent 
States  from  taking  the  manufacture  of  war  ma- 
terial out  of  private  hands.  Only  on  the  proved 
efficacy  of  such  measures  as  these  will  the  disarma- 
ment of  nations  follow,  slowly,  surely,  equally;  for 
man  will  then  be  acting,  as  he  loves  to  act,  not 
by  rote  and  theory,  but  on  the  evidence  of  facts. 
Is  all  this  a  wild-cat  notion,  or  a  mere  natural 
growth  out  of  what  went  before  the  war,  and  out 
of  the  terrific  tragedy  of  the  war  itself — a  plan 
tentative  and  experimental,  that  may  gradually 
force  its  way  to  confidence,  till  the  Court  of  Na- 
tions  reaches   the   unquestioned   authority   and 

386 


THE   ISLANDS  OF  THE   BLESSED 

permanence  of  each  individual  nation's  courts  of 
justice? 

We  of  the  Allied  countries  must  surely  long  for 
such  a  plan;  nor;  I  think  can  any  neutral  nation 
which  has  watched  and  trembled  at  this  war  be 
other  than  well-disposed  toward  it;  and,  whatever 
their  rulers  and  journalists  may  desire,  the  peo- 
ples of  the  Central  Empires  will  not  wish  to  be 
left  out.  Yet  when  the  time  comes  for  peace  dis- 
cussions one  sees  only  too  well  the  deadlock. 
The  Allied  nations,  if  victorious,  will  not  want  a 
round  table  seance  with  their  enemies  and  a 
cosy  settlement.  The  Central  Empires  will  not 
wish  to  accept  forced  membership  of  a  League 
for  Peace  founded  by  their  enemies,  in  which — 
however  mistakenly — they  believe  they  will  al- 
ways be  outvoted.  This  vicious  deadlock,  how- 
ever, is  less  real,  I  think,  than  it  seems.  There  are 
new  forces  at  work;  and  if  a  League  for  Peace 
can  make  even  a  lame  and  partial  start,  it  may 
by  these  new  forces  soon  be  fortified.  After  this 
war,  deep-planted  in  the  heart  of  every  people, 
whether  fighting  or  looking  on,  will  be  the  loath- 
ing of  national  aggressiveness!  Such  a  feeling 
has  never  existed  before  because  men  have  never 
before  been  so  stirred,  so  injured,  and  so  fright- 
ened. We  soon  forget,  of  course,  all  save  that  of 
which  we  are  constantly  reminded;  but  the  after- 

387 


THE   ISLANDS   OF  THE  BLESSED 

math  of  this  war  will  be  full  of  startling  revela- 
tions of  the  ruin  it  has  caused;  the  world  will 
reek  with  reminder  that  so-called  national  as- 
pirations cannot  with  impunity  be  aggressively 
pursued;  that  so-called  defensive  wars  cannot  be 
light-heartedly  incepted.  During  the  march  of  a 
war,  however  terrible,  the  fascination  of  strife 
colours  and  subdues  its  horror;  its  heroisms  hyp- 
notise, its  rancours  drug  all  reason,  blur  all  vi- 
sion. But  in  the  cold  thinned  blood  of  a  maimed 
future,  how  different  it  will  all  seem,  how  terrifi- 
cally disproportionate ! 

Love  of  country  has  never  before  had  such 
calls  made  on  it;  men  have  never  so  suffered  for 
their  patriotism.  That,  too,  must  bring  a  sweep- 
ing reaction,  which  will  gradually  force  the  hands 
of  reluctant  governments  into  adhesion  to  any 
scheme  which  promises  relief  from  a  repetition  of 
such  agonies.  And  so,  in  spite  of  all  the  diffi- 
culties, I  believe  some  sort  of  League  for  Peace 
will  come,  imperfect  and  experimental  at  first, 
but  which,  once  founded,  will  wax  and  grow 
strong,  in  the  real — not  merely  pious — horror  of 
war  which  will  follow  this  fearful  carnival.  Let 
it  but  hold  together  for  a  few  years,  survive  one 
or  two  serious  trials,  and  I  think  no  sane  nation 
will  ever  desire  its  dissolution. 

Such  a  scheme  will  not  come  down  to  us  from 

388 


THE  ISLANDS  OF  THE  BLESSED 

Heaven.  From  our  own  brains  and  wills  it  must 
spring;  from  our  sense  of — shall  we  say — the  in- 
convenience of  wars  like  this.  If  the  killing  and 
disablement  of  some  ten  million  men,  the  waste 
of  some  ten  to  twenty  thousand  million  pounds, 
persuades  us  to  nothing  but  the  leaving  of  the 
world  exactly  as  it  was,  as  liable  to  these  irrup- 
tions of  death  and  misery — then,  better  say  with 
the  Spanish  poet,  '  Of  all  the  misfortunes  of  man, 
the  greatest  is  to  have  been  born.' 

Even  before  the  guns  cease  roaring,  shall  not 
our  nine  Allied  peoples  agree  informally  among 
themselves  upon  the  structure  of  a  League  for 
Peace,  and  secure  the  sympathetic  understanding 
of  America,  and  the  other  neutral  countries,  on 
whose  wisdom  and  good- will  so  much  depends  ? 

I,  for  one,  would  wish  my  Country  foremost  in 
pursuing  this  great  chance — wish  that  she  might 
place  all  her  power  in  the  favouring  scale;  I  would 
wish  to  see  her  as  ready  to  submit  to  the  decisions 
of  an  International  Tribunal,  as  each  one  of  us 
is  ready  as  a  matter  of  course  to  submit  to  the 
decisions  of  our  judges. 

We  in  this  green  Britain  of  ours,  still  free  of  the 
invader's  foot,  can  measure  the  value  of  freedom 
now,  looking  across  to  lands  waiting  for  deliver- 
ance. No  country  of  Europe  but  has  suffered, 
during   long   centuries,    outrage   and   trampling, 

389 


THE  ISLANDS  OF,  THE  BLESSED 

siege  and  slaughter,  that  we  have  been  spared — 
saved  by  our  sea.  It  is  not  irony  that  calls  these 
the  islands  of  the  blessed. 

But  Fortune  is  a  jealous  goddess;  and  offerings 
are  due  to  her  who  has  given  us  an  inviolate 
soil.  I  seem  to  see  Fortune  standing  apart, 
watching — wondering:  'What  have  they  made — 
what  are  they  going  to  make  of  their  land?'  I 
seem  to  see  Fortune  thinking:  'If  I  grant  them 
success  once  more,  these  islanders,  are  they  great 
enough  to  survive  it?  Under  my  smile  the  em- 
pires of  the  past  one  by  one  went  down — Assyria, 
Egypt,  Persia,  Rome,  others  of  long,  long  ago. 
Will  this  empire  live,  or  will  it  too  rot  away, 
and  sink?" 

These  empires  of  the  past  fell  through  prosper- 
ity, through  inordinate  pride,  through  luxury  and 
slavery  hand  in  hand.  May  Fortune  hold  up  a 
mirror  to  us,  that  we  see  ourselves  as  we  are! 
Freedom  and  Humanity  are  not  mere  words; 
nor  is  a  people's  greatness  measured  in  acres  or 
in  pounds,  in  the  number  of  its  ships  on  the  sea, 
or  of  the  rifles  it  can  muster.  A  people's  great- 
ness is  in  the  breadth  and  quality  of  its  soul,  in 
its  fortitude,  alertness,  justice,  gentleness,  within 
itself  and  to  the  world  without;  and  in  its  faith 
that  man  has  his  fate  in  his  own  hands. 

As  the  individual,  so  the  State;  the  aggregate 

390 


THE  ISLANDS  OF  THE  BLESSED 

of  individual  virtue  decides  and  shapes  the  lot 
of  nations.  May  there  be  no  slaves  among  us 
and  none  who  fatten  upon  slavery;  no  brutes 
among  us  and  none  who  cower  under  brutality ! 
Let  us  not  hold  ourselves  as  the  elect  in  a  blind 
patriotism,  but  have  some  vision  of  the  world 
beyond  our  shores,  of  its  hopes  and  dreads  and 
natural  ambitions.  A  narrow  national  spirit 
never  served  mankind! 

Let  the  sea  be  our  inspiration  and  our  reminder ! 
For,  if  it  is  our  fortification,  the  sea  is  also  our 
link  with  all  the  world,  and  the  greatest  force  of 
untamed  Nature.  It  seems  to  me  that  they  who 
live  dependent  on  the  sea  should  never  be  puffed 
up.  Its  changing  moods  and  salt  winds,  its  wild- 
ness,  beauty,  desolation,  the  sudden  fates  that 
lurk  within  it,  that  leap  and  clutch  and  draw 
away  from  us  our  best;  the  great  spaces  of  it 
beneath  sun  and  stars — these  are  constant,  and 
to  our  souls  should  surely  carry  breadth,  sWeep 
out  of  us  the  littleness  of  Imperial  complacency. 
The  sea  is  never  chained,  and  the  eyes  of  sailors 
have  in  them  a  look  that  any  man  might  covet 
— a  steady  fronting  of  something  inscrutable, 
shifting,  dangerous.  They  know  the  little  worth 
of  human  strength,  the  need  of  unity;  they  know 
that  when  a  man  slackens  his  watch,  Fate  leaps 
upon  him. 

391 


THE   ISLANDS   OF  THE   BLESSED 

The  ship  of  each  nation  sails  a  sea  of  incalcu- 
lable currents  and  uncharted  channels.  Sailing 
that  sea,  may  we  have  the  eyes  of  sailors,  lest  our 
Fate  leap  upon  us ! 

Who  would  not  desire,  rushing  through  the 
thick  dark  of  the  future,  to  stand  on  the  cliffs  of 
vision — two  hundred  years,  say,  hence — and. view 
this  world? 

Will  there  then  be  this  League  for  War,  this 
caldron  where,  beneath  the  thin  crust,  a  boiling 
lava  bubbles,  and  at  any  minute  may  break 
through  and  leap  up,  as  now,  jet  high?  Will 
there  still  be  reek  and  desolation,  and  man  at 
the  mercy  of  the  machines  he  has  made;  still  be 
narrow  national  policies  and  rancours,  and  such 
mutual  fear,  that  no  country  dare  be  generous? 
Or  will  there  be  over  the  whole  world  something 
of  the  glamour  that  each  one  of  us  now  sees 
hovering  above  his  own  country;  and  men  and 
women — all — feel  they  are  natives  of  one  land? 
Who  dare  say  ? 

When  the  guns  cease  fire  and  all  is  still,  from 
the  woods  and  fields  and  seas,  from  the  skeleton 
towns  of  ravaged  countries,  the  wistful  dead  will 
rise,  and  with  their  eyes  accuse  us.  In  that  hour 
we  shall  have  for  answer  only  this:  We  fought 
for  a  better  Future  for  Mankind ! 

Did  we  ?    Do  we  ?    That  is  the  great  question. 

392 


THE   ISLANDS   OF  THE   BLESSED 

Is  our  gaze  really  fixed  on  the  far  horizon?  Or 
do  we  only  dream  it;  and  have  the  slain  no  com- 
fort in  their  untimely  darkness;  the  maimed,  the 
ruined,  the  bereaved,  no  shred  of  consolation? 
Is  it  all  to  be  for  nothing  but  the  salving  of  na- 
tional prides?  And  shall  the  Ironic  Spirit  fill 
the  whole  world  with  his  laughter? 

Or  shall  the  nations  take  the  first  step  in  that 
grand  march  of  real  deliverance  which  will  make 
the  whole  earth — at  last — the  islands  of  the 
blessed  ? 


393 


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